How is Chipageddon affecting you?

[harerod]

We just ordered some TI parts that were 15 USD instead of the normal 0.5. Also contacting TI to get the parts next time they make it: It will be in our webshop, buy it there.
So they just sell it to those scalpels in china, and refuse to give us first time buy opportunity. Not just to us, but also to our distributors, like Avnet or Arrow. Basically they are complete dicks about it, because they know whatever they make the market will buy it.

Interesting statement, which could help with future design decisions.
Do you have proof that TI prefers to sells to Chinese scalpers, instead to western distributors? Why would that be so? What would be their advantage?

[floobydust]

Add to Cart, go to checkout hours later or the next day and the parts are all scooped up. This has happened a few too many times to be coincidence.

I realized Digi-Key has ~24 analytics companies tracking all my mouse clicks and it's entirely possible for an algorithm to know what was added to cart, and swoop in and buy them first. Analytics for "advertising"?  Na, this is what the analytics are really about nowadays. I'd bet Purchasing departments also get screwed as they are putting together an order.
Your parts order is not secure in that I can buy analytics for the part #'s, qty. added to cart and possibly the IP address to ascertain the company, and use this information to profit, as a scalper or broker.

[nctnico]

We just ordered some TI parts that were 15 USD instead of the normal 0.5. Also contacting TI to get the parts next time they make it: It will be in our webshop, buy it there.
So they just sell it to those scalpels in china, and refuse to give us first time buy opportunity. Not just to us, but also to our distributors, like Avnet or Arrow. Basically they are complete dicks about it, because they know whatever they make the market will buy it.

Interesting statement, which could help with future design decisions.
Do you have proof that TI prefers to sells to Chinese scalpers, instead to western distributors? Why would that be so? What would be their advantage?

No need to become paranoid. The order is simple: big clients first, first come first served and then the smaller clients. TI is mostly a miss at this moment but not all parts are gone. Nevertheless I have designed out several TI parts and I'm afraid they won't be returning in the product so in the end TI is going to take a hit from not being able to deliver parts -again-. When the credit crunch hit in 2009, TI was also the manufacturer that had the biggest problem getting parts produced after halting in anticipation of a post apocalyptic world without technology. You'd expect they know better by now and NOT halt production when some kind of crisis comes along. But no 

[rsjsouza]

Add to Cart, go to checkout hours later or the next day and the parts are all scooped up. This has happened a few too many times to be coincidence.

Same here. Just happened yesterday. It is everywhere, quite frankly.

We just ordered some TI parts that were 15 USD instead of the normal 0.5. Also contacting TI to get the parts next time they make it: It will be in our webshop, buy it there.
So they just sell it to those scalpels in china, and refuse to give us first time buy opportunity. Not just to us, but also to our distributors, like Avnet or Arrow. Basically they are complete dicks about it, because they know whatever they make the market will buy it.

Interesting statement, which could help with future design decisions.
Do you have proof that TI prefers to sells to Chinese scalpers, instead to western distributors? Why would that be so? What would be their advantage?

No need to become paranoid. The order is simple: big clients first, first come first served and then the smaller clients.

I would say that big customers (most probably auto) are able to allocate parts well ahead in advance - that or prior commitments throughout 2020/2021 are still being fulfilled, leaving very little for Digikey/Mouser/Arrow (their remaining official distributors in the west) - or their own store, for that matter.

[IDEngineer]

Add to Cart, go to checkout hours later or the next day and the parts are all scooped up. This has happened a few too many times to be coincidence.

Same thing with domain names, been true for years. If you find a name you like, better buy it right then... because no matter how obscure it is, if you search for its availability even a day later it's remarkable how often it's "owned but available for bidding" at some jacked up price. FAR too often to be coincidence!

[tszaboo]

We just ordered some TI parts that were 15 USD instead of the normal 0.5. Also contacting TI to get the parts next time they make it: It will be in our webshop, buy it there.
So they just sell it to those scalpels in china, and refuse to give us first time buy opportunity. Not just to us, but also to our distributors, like Avnet or Arrow. Basically they are complete dicks about it, because they know whatever they make the market will buy it.

Interesting statement, which could help with future design decisions.
Do you have proof that TI prefers to sells to Chinese scalpers, instead to western distributors? Why would that be so? What would be their advantage?

Maybe because there is 0 in stock anywhere, except from noname sources from China, that have reels of the stuff?
Also when we asked for it repeatedly, they just told us to "order online when it is in stock". They know exactly, when the manufacturing happens, it is scheduled and they even told us when and how many will go to the webshop.
Just search for DC-DC converters on TI.com, which they have a stock of at least 1000 pieces. 2/3 of the parts, they have 0 stock, and when you search for it on octopart, thousands of them are available from unauthorized sources.

This is the kinda bullshit they did ~5 years ago. They told me "We don't do support anymore, if you have question, go and ask on our forums". Honestly, I had enough. At this point the only thing going for them is the large catalog.
When we ask for the parts through arrow, they are already saying it will only be in 2023.  While the parts are made, it just goes to this online "Who has better purchasing bots" nonsense.

[floobydust]

It's Digi-Key f@#&'in over their customers by whoring out analytics data for extra profit. What a huge mistake and crime, Mark Larson would roll some heads.

[Algoma]

I sure hope those scalpers are left holding a pretty big bag of surplus over-priced products when supply catches up with their attempts to control various markets... At least Intel seems to have pulled off a successful product launch with plenty of their Gen12 CPUs to go around. Now if only that DDR5 wasn't vaporware.

[nctnico]

We just ordered some TI parts that were 15 USD instead of the normal 0.5. Also contacting TI to get the parts next time they make it: It will be in our webshop, buy it there.
So they just sell it to those scalpels in china, and refuse to give us first time buy opportunity. Not just to us, but also to our distributors, like Avnet or Arrow. Basically they are complete dicks about it, because they know whatever they make the market will buy it.

Interesting statement, which could help with future design decisions.
Do you have proof that TI prefers to sells to Chinese scalpers, instead to western distributors? Why would that be so? What would be their advantage?

Maybe because there is 0 in stock anywhere, except from noname sources from China, that have reels of the stuff?
Also when we asked for it repeatedly, they just told us to "order online when it is in stock". They know exactly, when the manufacturing happens, it is scheduled and they even told us when and how many will go to the webshop.
Just search for DC-DC converters on TI.com, which they have a stock of at least 1000 pieces. 2/3 of the parts, they have 0 stock, and when you search for it on octopart, thousands of them are available from unauthorized sources.

Are you sure those unauthorized sources are legit? I would be highly surprised if you manage to buy new/original parts from those sources. IF (big if) the parts are legit, it is more likely to be old stock which is now sold for insane prices.

[tom66]

Are you sure those unauthorized sources are legit? I would be highly surprised if you manage to buy new/original parts from those sources. IF (big if) the parts are legit, it is more likely to be old stock which is now sold for insane prices.

This, we go to many of these  sources looking for parts, just for options.
At least 60-70% of the time "no we don't have that TI part but we have this Renesas DC-DC converter from 20 years ago with a totally different pinout, you want buy?"

The only greymarket sources that are worthwhile are people like Princeps and the like (no shortage of these companies but they're not fly-by-night), and then through major CEMs.  Our CEM has allocation with TI for instance.

In general doing your own procurement can work but it is a massive headache you don't want if you can avoid it.

[Kasper]

Kind of off topic but a good example of how fragile things are. In BC, Canada, it rained more than usual and our main highways got washed out.  It took a day or two for produce and dairy to be cleaned out from the grocery stores.  Almost a week later the stores are now restocking.

Fortunately my digikey and amazon orders still arrived in a couple days.

[cortex_m0]

You'd expect they know better by now and NOT halt production when some kind of crisis comes along. But no 

Texas Instruments did no such thing, except as and when required by local regulations.

This thread has developed into quite the conspiracy hivemind. 

[coppice]

You'd expect they know better by now and NOT halt production when some kind of crisis comes along. But no 

Texas Instruments did no such thing, except as and when required by local regulations.

This thread has developed into quite the conspiracy hivemind. 

As George Burns to wisely said "Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.".

[floobydust]

Unfortunately, it's a complicated mess. Opportunists, hoarding, brokers- are making it worse.
When increasing supply takes years, even low-tech energy takes years for drilling and production before the production comes in. There is no magic wand that can be waved to get more natural gas or crude oil or semiconductors, especially when suppliers love the high prices.

To confirm my suspicion the disti's analytics are screwing us over, try load up your cart with semi's and see what happens to those items. Just as an experiment 

[cortex_m0]

To confirm my suspicion the disti's analytics are screwing us over, try load up your cart with semi's and see what happens to those items. Just as an experiment 

All right, done. I've taken a screen shot of my current DigiKey cart, which consists of five ICs: two microcontrollers, a quad op-amp, a switching regulator, and a battery charger. I'll check back Monday after work, just in case these bots only work Monday to Friday.

Notable that this isn't an "experiment" per se - if the parts do sell out from under me, that doesn't suggest that brokers or analytics are involved. It could just as well be that DigiKey is doing a robust trade.

[KE5FX]

I'm not sure what the expectation is here.  For a distributor, the only thing worse than front-running customer orders would be giving customers the ability to influence the market simply by putting 10,000 parts in their "shopping cart." 

The parts don't get taken off the shelf until someone pays money for them.  Only then are they removed from inventory.  That's the only way it can possibly work.

[nctnico]

You'd expect they know better by now and NOT halt production when some kind of crisis comes along. But no 

Texas Instruments did no such thing, except as and when required by local regulations.

Maybe, maybe not but from my point of view TI seems to be hit the worst compared to other semiconductor manufacturers -again-. Or put differently; I had the biggest challenge getting TI parts or designing them out in the designs I'm trying to get produced. This goes from simple MOSFETs to more specialist parts. And it didn't got gradually worse over time but right from the start. For one particular project I have started to order chips very early this year (somewhere in January) and by then the parts I wanted where already gone so I had to use an alternative package.

[rsjsouza]

I'm not sure what the expectation is here.  For a distributor, the only thing worse than front-running customer orders would be giving customers the ability to influence the market simply by putting 10,000 parts in their "shopping cart." 

The parts don't get taken off the shelf until someone pays money for them.  Only then are they removed from inventory.  That's the only way it can possibly work.

I don't know either what is the expected outcome. I think this was discussed somewhere around EEV as well - the cart is not a purchasing committment unless money is exchanged. Even still, it is not uncommon that line items are not fulfilled (or partially fulfilled) after the P.O. is placed - it just happened to me last Wednesday and it has happened to me in the past (pre-Covid). It simply means someone purchased the lot before me - broker or legit customer.

I receive daily spam e-mails from companies asking to buy whatever parts they mention on their email. I wouldn't be surprised if a Contract Manufacturer resells these in case of product cancellation or excess inventory of specific parts.

[floobydust]

Look at your browser's Javascript on your disti webpages. Lots of third-party analytics which collect every mouse click - some for monitoring the site and server's performance, as a genuine use. But is the data shared? Your IP address could be anonymized yet still collected from the web beacons. I didn't look for remote loaded third-party Javascript.
I got lost looking at Akamai tools and offerings, it's an entire industry running underneath the Internet.
Knowing who and what is loaded up in the cart, this info is at third parties. Make a buy before they do and profit.

High-frequency trading on Wall Street makes money by having advance knowledge (milliseconds) of an upcoming transaction and having software take advantage of that.
"Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt" is a good read.

[tszaboo]

Are you sure those unauthorized sources are legit? I would be highly surprised if you manage to buy new/original parts from those sources. IF (big if) the parts are legit, it is more likely to be old stock which is now sold for insane prices.

The supply chain manager usually asks for pictures of the reels before ordering them from over there. Including the labels, they check out. The parts are fairly new, only in the market for few years anyway, after baking these parts should be OK.

[VK3DRB]

Sure, Digikey is selling to zero-value-add brokers, but there is no law against this. Digikey is almost only useful as a resource for designing, pretty hopeless for ordering anything.

But TI is a in a real mess and I agree, they will lose a LOT of business down the track as abandoned engineers use competitors' chips. Looking after the big end of town is a short sighted policy. I did a design recently that uses a competitor's battery management IC over the ubiquitous TI bq chips which are nil stock planet Earth. Sure it was 50 cents dearer but it has proven to be a great chip and very easy to use. The product is about to undergo IEC-60601 testing, so TI will absolutely NOT be considered for this product now or in the future.

TI is losing engineering customers, and it appears they could not care less as is evident by the spin and lack of transparency on their website. I wonder if TI's shareholders know about how they are treating engineers who are a source for future business.

[SilverSolder]

[...]

TI is losing engineering customers, and it appears they could not care less as is evident by the spin and lack of transparency on their website. I wonder if TI's shareholders know about how they are treating engineers who are a source for future business.

As long as TI keeps the big customers happy, there has to be at least SOME engineers that still like them? 

[IDEngineer]

To provide some balance to this subtopic: This is one of the things I've always appreciated about Microchip. They give great support even to small customers. One of their inside sales folks once told me (paraphrased) "We understand that today's small customers are tomorrow's large customers, and we want you to still like us then."

[cortex_m0]

To confirm my suspicion the disti's analytics are screwing us over, try load up your cart with semi's and see what happens to those items. Just as an experiment 

All right, done. I've taken a screen shot of my current DigiKey cart, which consists of five ICs: two microcontrollers, a quad op-amp, a switching regulator, and a battery charger. I'll check back Monday after work, just in case these bots only work Monday to Friday.

Update: None of the parts sold out from under me.

[harerod]

quote: author=cortex_m0 link=topic=283000.msg3830786#msg3830786
...Update: None of the parts sold out from under me.
/quote


*dons alu hat*
But, but, you alerted them through this thread...