How is Chipageddon affecting you?

[peter-h]

Price fixing is widely done in electronics.

The method used is that a franchised disti selling at an unauthorised price gets the franchise pulled. I have this directly from people in the business. It is the oldest trick in the book.

Price maintenance is everywhere

[jmelson]

Price fixing is widely done in electronics.

The method used is that a franchised disti selling at an unauthorised price gets the franchise pulled. I have this directly from people in the business. It is the oldest trick in the book.

Price maintenance is everywhere

Yes, and recently I got a BIIIG check from the resistor indirect class action suit, and a smaller check from the capacitor suit.  The cause was exactly price fixing and collusion.
Jon

[peter-h]

Very funny.

Resistors and capacitors are doing just fine. 0805 are back to 0.001 GBP.

[SiliconWizard]

FPGA prices, OTOH, are still almost twice what they should be.

[tom66]

FPGA prices, OTOH, are still almost twice what they should be.

I've heard on the grapevine that demand for FPGAs is way up after Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Lots more missile systems, thermal cameras, radars etc.

[Infraviolet]

"Resistors and capacitors are doing just fine. 0805 are back to 0.001 GBP."
... But now you can only buy in packs ten times, or more, larger than you used to be able to.

[peter-h]

I buy in reel multiples, 5k for resistors, 3k or 4k for caps. No issues there.

Single sourced parts are holding up their artificial price hikes for the longest time - as always.

[SilverSolder]

Price fixing is widely done in electronics.

The method used is that a franchised disti selling at an unauthorised price gets the franchise pulled. I have this directly from people in the business. It is the oldest trick in the book.

Price maintenance is everywhere

There's nothing like a free market economy!   Ehrmmmmmm......

[Karel]

There's some light at the end of the tunnel:

https://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/rpi4-modbp-4gb/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-4gb/dp/3051887

[SiliconWizard]

They're not saying anything about quantities though (unless I missed it.)
Likely that the whole stock will  be gobbled up in a matter of a few hours.

[Kasper]

Just had a client ask for a 2nd copy of a one-off linear actuator system I made for him 8 years ago.

Much to my suprise, all the electronic components aside from a cap and inductor are in stock.  It's pretty simple, just some bucks, opto isolators, mosfets and the like but still, I expected atleast some to be obsolete.

Even the servo and controller were in stock with the old dealer and they are slightly cheaper now than they were 8 years ago.

[jonovid]

Yellen begins China trip amid deepening divide     7 July 2023

more trade restrictions in Chinese electronics is not looking good.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The more they interfere, the more things seem to fuck up.

[Neutrion]

Did anyone noticed that actual nation states were also bunkering ICs?
For Russia, if they were preparing for the invasion it would totally make sense, but but also for China.

Did not went through all the messages here, but I don't remember much discussion about it.

Other thing connected to this topic:
Ikea LED candle, board made in 2021 may. MCU number IRLZ272. Did not find anything about it, but obviously IKEA did not have any problems sourcing these in the middle of the shortage for such a cheap product.
What can it be? 14 leg SO?   package,  8th-leg VCC 9th leg GND. Runs from under 2V uses around 2-3 mA when working.

[tom66]

There wasn't a major shortage for the biggest OEMs.  Even car manufacturers could get parts, it was just a case that they could not get enough to satisfy all of their demand and a few specific line items were very difficult to source.

For a company like IKEA, they likely ordered 1 million of that bulb and they could get the chip when needed.  It's the small guys who need the general purpose microcontrollers and so on that got screwed over, they didn't represent enough business for the big suppliers to care about, so they got almost no parts.

Fortunately that's significantly improved nowadays.

[coppice]

There wasn't a major shortage for the biggest OEMs.  Even car manufacturers could get parts, it was just a case that they could not get enough to satisfy all of their demand and a few specific line items were very difficult to source.

I think its more accurate to say they could get what they had contracted to get, but when they tried to increase orders they were rebuffed because the additional capacity wasn't there. For a semiconductor maker the automotive market is a huge PITA. Its big, which stops people walking away, but the prices are really low and the qualification requirements are really high. If you are capacity limited there are more profitable parts you can ship,

[SiliconWizard]

Yep. You get constraints similar (not same, but still) to the aerospace industry with bottom-low prices, what's not to like?

[Neutrion]

Did anyone noticed that actual nation states were also bunkering ICs?
For Russia, if they were preparing for the invasion it would totally make sense, but but also for China.

Did not went through all the messages here, but I don't remember much discussion about it.

Other thing connected to this topic:
Ikea LED candle, board made in 2021 may. MCU number IRLZ272. Did not find anything about it, but obviously IKEA did not have any problems sourcing these in the middle of the shortage for such a cheap product.
What can it be? 14 leg SO?   package,  8th-leg VCC 9th leg GND. Runs from under 2V uses around 2-3 mA when working.

Sorry, I was talking nonsense, 8th leg is VCC 14th, so opposite corner GND.

I thought IKEA might not going to use a noname chip also because the power management on this one seems quiet well made, in some semi-active mode with only the sensor on, with an IR led pulsing with 6 Hz, the power consumption of the whole unit is 3-500uA.

And these are sold now, so it seems the whole production of the electronics might was made in one run.(This candle was bought for a few days ago.)
 So if we knew about  the chip it would be interesting to know whether there was any shortage of of it
for others.

But talking about car producers, there was some halt of production for weeks or months because of quiet cheap chips if I remember right, maybe not more expensive than this one. (OK I know, different certs., but still...)
So the fact that IKEA had no problem with production and orders but car manufacturer had, would be a funny  fact.
Also if this chip is a name brand one, than it would mean that IKEA puts a custom number on them.
Otherwise I don't think if in case a chinese chip there would be absolute no info on it on the web.

Maybe the whole chipageddon was caused by IKEA. At the moment they ordered the chips for this batch there were some other high profile buyers watching the market, saw stock numbers depleted, and starting to bunker as well!

[Kleinstein]

The chip shortage was real and the car manufaturer were among the ones hit the hardest, as they had just canceled / postponed oders before the crisis started and than still needed the parts. With high demand for computer ships they got surprised with long lead times. This were not necessary cheap chips - more like custom ones. Still a cheap part compared to the complete car that could not be finished. A shortage also with standard parts was a bit later.

For the Ikea lamps, i doubt that they are directly manufactured and planed by Ikea. This is more a Chinese (or may be Vietnam for even lower costs) OEM manufacturer that produced the parts. At the very low end this could be genuine Chinese parts, possibly less effected by the shortage and transport problems, as production and packaging could be together. It was not that all parts were short in supply - with the board production slowed down some products were also there in excess. AFAIR the low end µCs were not that critical, at least not all types.  The short BOM list for the simple products also made things relatively easy - the tricky products were complicated PCBs, where many parts can be show stoppers.

[Neutrion]

I think there is hardly anything manufacured "directly" by Ikea. But I am sure they were involved with the specifications. The flame imitation flickering is also quiet well made.
If it would be a chinese IC from a brand which is not sourcing complete junk, I think it would be possible to find some info on it.  And I don't think a manufacturer would risk quality issues with a  relatively quality conscious brand like Ikea with absoulute noname(even in chinese terms) questionable parts, with unknown failure rates.

[coppice]

I think there is hardly anything manufacured "directly" by Ikea.

Ikea seems to do its own woodworking, and get most other things produced by outsiders. I don't know how much input they have to the designs.