On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 3:35:03 AM UTC-4, Stef wrote:
> On 2022-06-16 Rick C wrote in comp.arch.embedded:
> > On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:35:56 PM UTC-4, Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
> >>
> >> If you need to be sure you have those chips in quantity x over the run
> >> of a given product, and x has fewer than 7 digits, your only truly safe
> >> bet is to stockpile the whole lot up front. The next-safest plan would
> >> be to stockpile enough of them to tide you over the conservatively
> >> estimated time for a redesign of the board and most of the lower-level
> >> software. Obviously neither of those options is cheap; but the main
> >> alternative is that you may one day have to discontinue your whole
> >> product because that one part suddenly turned into unobtainium.
> >
> > So how do you stockpile inventory for a product when you don't know the ultimate sales volume? I designed a board for a company 14 years ago. I originally sold maybe 100 a year average (100 piece minimum). Volumes grew until I was getting orders for several thousand in one year and none in the next. Now I have an order for 10,000 pieces. The company I sell these to has always refused to commit to any quantity. It's not always feasible to plan for future production, so this idea is clearly not a panacea.
> You cannot plan for everything unfortunately. :-(
>
> But talk to your customers.

LOL!!! Oh, I've tried to talk to them. They are not at all interested. One of the key components on this board (by "key", I mean irreplaceable without a respin) Went EOL in 2013. I could still buy them only because Arrow stocked a *bunch*. When I gave a warning to my customer, they bought 3,000 devices. However, when it came time to use them, they were missing. lol In subsequent situations, anytime I ask them to help with projections, they are silent.

> Explain that they need to commit to a
> quantity so you can buy parts upfront. And that if they don't, there is
> a risk that there will be no parts when needed. At least, that is what
> we do. Most customers will be aware of the situation and willing to give
> guaranties (and pay for the parts) to make sure they can get their
> product in the future. And if not, they have been warned of the risks.

Being warned means nothing to me. I am the guy who has to deal with the headache.

> But still, you cannot stockpile everything. So 100% guarantees are not
> possible, but they never where.

Exactly my point. Also, stockpiles carry risk of leaving you stuck with material you can't use... although, these days, excess material is worth money.

--

Rick C.

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On 06/16/22 07:46, Rick C wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:35:56 PM UTC-4, Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
>> Am 15.06.2022 um 16:12 schrieb Uwe Bonnes:
>>
>>> In times of allocation and part shortage, a "prudent" selection is not easy!
>> Amen. Or, as the saying goes:
>>
>> "All prognoses are hard, even more so those concerning the future."
>>
>> (Made famous by Niels Bohr, but may have been a widely known in his home
>> country of Denmark before that).
>>
>> Let's face it: unless you're a major customer (and no, an order volume
>> of a million units does not reliably make you one), any and all
>> expectations about parts availability in the micro controller market
>> that reach further than a few months into the future are recklessly
>> optimistic. And that was how it was _before_ the pandemic and all its
>> side effects.
>>
>> If you need to be sure you have those chips in quantity x over the run
>> of a given product, and x has fewer than 7 digits, your only truly safe
>> bet is to stockpile the whole lot up front. The next-safest plan would
>> be to stockpile enough of them to tide you over the conservatively
>> estimated time for a redesign of the board and most of the lower-level
>> software. Obviously neither of those options is cheap; but the main
>> alternative is that you may one day have to discontinue your whole
>> product because that one part suddenly turned into unobtainium.
>
> So how do you stockpile inventory for a product when you don't know the ultimate sales volume? I designed a board for a company 14 years ago. I originally sold maybe 100 a year average (100 piece minimum). Volumes grew until I was getting orders for several thousand in one year and none in the next. Now I have an order for 10,000 pieces. The company I sell these to has always refused to commit to any quantity. It's not always feasible to plan for future production, so this idea is clearly not a panacea.
>

One thing not mentioned is that all design at present should be done
to use only common functions in micros and no use of specialist
devices. If the code is written right, it makes it easier to respin
for a different device if supply becomes difficult...

Chris

On 16/06/2022 15:47, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2022-06-16, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>
>> Major customers are in exactly the same boat. Car manufacturers have
>> had to pause production, or switch to different models and delay
>> deliveries, because they can't get the parts. HP can't get parts for
>> its printers, D-Link can't get components for their switches. Even the
>> companies that make the electronics for the machines that make
>> components can't get the parts they need to get new semiconductor plants
>> online.
>
> It seems that last category do have better luck than "the rest of
> us". My employer makes a black box that's designed into some
> semiconductor tool or other. We haven't been able to build said boxes
> for some time because we can't get FPGAs and Ethernet switch chips.
>
> Our customer (who makes semiconductor tools) asked which parts we
> neeed to build more black boxes. A week later they informed us that
> 5000 of the FPGAs had been shipped to us, and they were about to have
> a chat with the manufacturer of the Ethernet switch chips. [I haven't
> heard the results of that chat.]
>

It's nice to hear the occasional success stories of common sense!

I read somewhere about another company who make some kind of boards used
in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. They ended up buying some
400 brand new washing machines, to cannibalise them for a couple of
components.

It's a tough branch at the moment :-(

On 14.06.2022 22:48, Theo wrote:

> About 15 years ago I worked on a project which was building processors on
> TFT display technology - the same used for the drive electronics for LCD
> panels. There the feature size was O(10um), which is the same as the Intel
> 4004, and you could physically see the transistors if you held the panel up
> to the light. That's the kind of environment where every transistor counts.
> Another example is organic electronics, eg inkjet printed transistors.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/plastic-microprocessor