How is Chipageddon affecting you?

[Mangozac]

I think this is a good reason that short of Xi Jinping going mad like Putin (and there's so far no evidence that he will), sanctions against China are unlikely.

China, unlike Russia, is highly integrated with the West with its technology sectors and booming middle class.  While the war in Ukraine is senseless, Putin may have been able to justify his expansionist aims.  There is oil and gas in both Donbas and Crimea.  But China would be decimated by Western sanctions, with very little to gain.   They can shout about Taiwan all day, but it doesn't bring any benefit to them to take it. 

Europe and the USA would still be wise to build up strong semiconductor production and supply chain outside of China and Taiwan though, if only for economic reasons.

Yes, I agree completely with all of your comments. I still however believe that it is wise to gradually diversify the supply chain so that it's never reliant on a single country to the degree it currently is on China.

[rsjsouza]

Even SN74LS04N in DIP is unavailable from distributors.

Well there are some if you're really desperate :
https://www.rocelec.com/part/NSC74LS04PC?utm_source=findChips&utm_medium=buyNow

Also, who still uses DIL 74LS04's?

LOL!

Well, it’s not for new stuff, it’s for repairing old stuff.

Would it be possible to use SN74F04 instead?
https://www.mouser.com/c/?q=sn74f04

Or, if Jameco delivers to you:
https://www.jameco.com/z/74LS04-Major-Brands-IC-74LS04-Hex-Inverter_46316.html

[SilverSolder]

[...] it is wise to gradually diversify the supply chain so that it's never reliant on a single country to the degree it currently is on China.

You have to remember how we got here:   China provided the goods at a much lower price than our own cozy companies, so all the customers went there instead!

We are already seeing the effects of choking the supplies from China (rampant inflation)

[tom66]

Newest lead time for  some Xilinx FPGAs is April 2024... two years!

[coppice]

Newest lead time for  some Xilinx FPGAs is April 2024... two years!

Does that mean you need to place orders now for the chips that are just entering the design pipeline? 

[tom66]

It's worse.  You can't sell anything with those lead times, once customers hear that the lead time to get product is two years, they run away.

So you have to pre-order well in advance based on expected market demand, but if you're just about to launch a product, how would you know that?

Bit of a nightmare for SMEs!

[tszaboo]

I'm starting to be fed up with the whole situation. Every time I hear there is a part missing from our supply chain, I do a search on Octopart, just to find that there are thousands of it in stock in Win source or SHENGYU or some other noname hoarder, who will give you a quote 20 times the nominal price. And if you agree to it, they just turn around, and ask for more.
And if we buy these parts, the money is used to buy up the stock of other parts. I just checked, 85% of buck converters are out of stock at digikey, and I would argue that most of the remaining stock cannot be used for any meaningful production. And if we would want to order from the factory, the lead time is end of 2023. And they don't even have samples of the parts, to even be able to build a prototype.
I cannot do my job properly anymore.

[SilverSolder]

I'm starting to be fed up with the whole situation. Every time I hear there is a part missing from our supply chain, I do a search on Octopart, just to find that there are thousands of it in stock in Win source or SHENGYU or some other noname hoarder, who will give you a quote 20 times the nominal price. And if you agree to it, they just turn around, and ask for more.
And if we buy these parts, the money is used to buy up the stock of other parts. I just checked, 85% of buck converters are out of stock at digikey, and I would argue that most of the remaining stock cannot be used for any meaningful production. And if we would want to order from the factory, the lead time is end of 2023. And they don't even have samples of the parts, to even be able to build a prototype.
I cannot do my job properly anymore.

No problem - just use discrete components!  Time to practice the old skills while the world around us regresses to the stone age...

[IDEngineer]

I'm breeding cats to have a reliable source of cat's whiskers. Just in case.

[Howardlong]

Even SN74LS04N in DIP is unavailable from distributors.

Well there are some if you're really desperate :
https://www.rocelec.com/part/NSC74LS04PC?utm_source=findChips&utm_medium=buyNow

Also, who still uses DIL 74LS04's?

LOL!

Well, it’s not for new stuff, it’s for repairing old stuff.

Would it be possible to use SN74F04 instead?
https://www.mouser.com/c/?q=sn74f04

Or, if Jameco delivers to you:
https://www.jameco.com/z/74LS04-Major-Brands-IC-74LS04-Hex-Inverter_46316.html

It's for a crystal oscillator so it's dependent on the chip's linear properties. Some 74F04s and 74AS04s arrived today, and I have some 74ALS04s on their way.

Jameco have delivered to me in the past couple of years or so, that's a good find. I used to use them regularly in the 70s and early 80s!

[AndyC_772]

I'm starting to be fed up with the whole situation. Every time I hear there is a part missing from our supply chain, I do a search on Octopart, just to find that there are thousands of it in stock in Win source or SHENGYU or some other noname hoarder, who will give you a quote 20 times the nominal price.

They don't actually have the parts. They claim to, take your money, then go out to their network of contacts to see if anyone actually does have the parts for sale.

If they do, and they can get them cheaper, then you get your parts and they pocket the difference. If the price is higher, then they come back to you and demand more money and/or a larger MOQ.

[AndyC_772]

Newest lead time for  some Xilinx FPGAs is April 2024... two years!

I've heard much the same about Altera - parts are allocated to Intel internal use, preferred tier 1 customers and the US DoD only.

In other words: forget it, go buy a dev kit for Efinix or Gowin.

[AndyC_772]

Newest lead time for  some Xilinx FPGAs is April 2024... two years!

Does that mean you need to place orders now for the chips that are just entering the design pipeline? 

It means that whoever you're asking has absolutely *no clue* when, or if, they might actually get parts.

As a general rule, lead times up to 52 weeks mean "you'll get your parts eventually". They'll be fabricated the next time the fab makes a batch of this particular design, and that'll be some time this year - probably. You'll find out exactly when after you've placed the order, more than likely by a courier turning up unexpectedly.

53+ weeks means "even if we make the parts, you're not on the recipient list". They can't make enough to meet demand, and your order is too small to care about. You might possibly get parts eventually, but don't count on it. You're much better off redesigning.

[MT]

It means that whoever you're asking has absolutely *no clue* when, or if, they might actually get parts.

As a general rule, lead times up to 52 weeks mean "you'll get your parts eventually". They'll be fabricated the next time the fab makes a batch of this particular design, and that'll be some time this year - probably. You'll find out exactly when after you've placed the order, more than likely by a courier turning up unexpectedly.

53+ weeks means "even if we make the parts, you're not on the recipient list". They can't make enough to meet demand, and your order is too small to care about. You might possibly get parts eventually, but don't count on it. You're much better off redesigning.

[tom66]

I've heard much the same about Altera - parts are allocated to Intel internal use, preferred tier 1 customers and the US DoD only.

In other words: forget it, go buy a dev kit for Efinix or Gowin.

Possibly.  But, certainly our experience so far has been that Digi-Key has kept up with the queue of orders.  For instance, we got Zynq parts in June 2021, about 9 months after we ordered them, on the date promised.

Obviously, it's an issue if they don't even keep to 24 months, but the fact that an exact date is promised, rather than a vague "backorder", gives me some hope.  The bugbear I have is I warned management that these were selling out, we could have actually put an order in for delivery next month (back in December) which would have fulfilled future demand, but someone else clearly beat us to it.

At a certain point you just have to sigh and say "I told you so, and I'm not cleaning up your mess!"  There's no re-designing this project; we'll just end up buying dev-kits and removing the FPGAs eventually.  We did that for $1,000 PIC24's as it was more economically viable.   Rough time to be an EE.   Can't wait for this crap to be over.  Soon, right?  It must end!

[nctnico]

I just got a new project in that basically comes down to re-designing a project I did almost 2 years ago. This time with mostly Chinese chips because the parts for the design I did earlier are hard to get. Go figure...

[AndyC_772]

Possibly.  But, certainly our experience so far has been that Digi-Key has kept up with the queue of orders.  For instance, we got Zynq parts in June 2021, about 9 months after we ordered them, on the date promised.

There's no 'possibly' about it, I got the notification straight from Mouser right before they cancelled the order.

I've also resorted to desoldering chips from dev boards - not a bad idea if it means I can prototype now for something that wouldn't need to hit production for a while anyway. At least I can be debugging code and designing the rev B while we wait for the wafer fabs to do their stuff.

[tszaboo]

Sure, no problem. Please send me the schematic for a stepdown converterer which fits into 10x10mm and can run from 1uA.
When we are finished with this useless pandering that everyone exercises here:
1. Not every circuit can be built from discretes that fulfills your requirements.
2. Sometimes you just want the exact part number, because that's the one which is certified and proven to be safe. Safe, as in "It is not going to set an oil refinery on fire, and burn people alive". Not something like it, the exact same part from the exact same factory.

[SilverSolder]

Sure, no problem. Please send me the schematic for a stepdown converterer which fits into 10x10mm and can run from 1uA.
When we are finished with this useless pandering that everyone exercises here:
1. Not every circuit can be built from discretes that fulfills your requirements.
2. Sometimes you just want the exact part number, because that's the one which is certified and proven to be safe. Safe, as in "It is not going to set an oil refinery on fire, and burn people alive". Not something like it, the exact same part from the exact same factory.

It was obviously a tongue-in-cheek comment!   

...I would guess, though, that most of us are thinking very hard about what features/chips can be eliminated or made "good enough" from basic parts in the current environment?

[cdev]

It would be great if built in to some power outlets there were some cheap diagnostic tools that showed us how to use power more efficiently.  With technology being what it is today, I could see that being done without adding much to its cost.

We should put our heads together thinking about the educational component, all around the world. Make it a cooperative goal, and not a competitive one.

Lets face it, often electronics is built to meet a certain low cost BOM, resulting in products that dont last long. If we could prevent that from being as common somehow, lots of stuff thats sold would last longer and work better.

Nobody wants to make crap products if its avoidable.

[peter-h]

My little business was affected by this apparently a lot less than many others, because I order a lot and rarely. Eventually I did run out of stuff but keeping a couple of years' stock has paid off; also in having bought chips for £0.80 which are now £2.50 (anything from Maxim really ).

And I suspect a lot of other people have come to the same conclusion - stock hoarding pays off - which is why shortages remain.

There is no basic increase in demand for electronics. It is hoarding and hoarding.

[SilverSolder]

My little business was affected by this apparently a lot less than many others, because I order a lot and rarely. Eventually I did run out of stuff but keeping a couple of years' stock has paid off; also in having bought chips for £0.80 which are now £2.50 (anything from Maxim really ).

And I suspect a lot of other people have come to the same conclusion - stock hoarding pays off - which is why shortages remain.

There is no basic increase in demand for electronics. It is hoarding and hoarding.

so, basically, people's natural response to rampant inflation?

[Kasper]

Seeed is now offering to store your extra parts.  I know lots of turnkey assemblers do that but this is the first I've seen it offered by the couple low cost Chinese assemblers I'm familiar with.

[IDEngineer]

Seeed is now offering to store your extra parts.

Isn't that an Inverse Bernie Madoff scheme? Using your stock to cover other customers. Works great until they can't find replacements for your stock that they "loaned" to other people....

[Ed.Kloonk]

Seeed is now offering to store your extra parts.

Isn't that an Inverse Bernie Madoff scheme? Using your stock to cover other customers. Works great until they can't find replacements for your stock that they "loaned" to other people....

The Australian banking system says hi.