Chip shortage

[granddad]

For me it has been about 30 years buying Microchip's mcu ,and as I was down to using my last dsPIC33EV256GM104 ( as jpg ) wanted to replish my stock , thought it would be easy.... Nah . my usual UK supplier nil stock, also Farnell now have a £9.50 handling charge ! Only MC direct seem to have the 128 version (prog mem) available .. wondering how long this will last. perhaps i should move to other silicon ?

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Digikey have good stock of the 48 pin version, if you can use those?

DSPIC33EV256GM104T-I/P8 Microchip Technology | Integrated Circuits (ICs) | DigiKey

Order today, ships today. DSPIC33EV256GM104T-I/P8 – dsPIC series Microcontroller IC 16-Bit 70MHz 256KB (85.5K x 24) FLASH 48-TQFP (7x7) from Microchip Technology. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.co.uk

 

[ronsimpson]

Arrow and Verical, DigiKey, Mouser, RS has one tray,
Direct from MicroChip DSPIC33EV256GM104-I/PT & DSPIC33EV256GM104-E/PT (different part but might work)

 

[Diver300]

A lot of ICs that I've been looking at have lead times of over a year.

 

[tumbleweed]

perhaps i should move to other silicon ?

Good luck with that. It's like playing whack-a-mole trying to get chips these days.
If you're going to "move to other silicon", your best bet would be to buy a stock of parts first!

A lot of ICs that I've been looking at have lead times of over a year.

Yup... and it's like that with most mfgs, not just microchip.

 

[ronsimpson]

I am having a fight with TI.
I have perched all available parts from Digikey many time this year. It is hard to pay $0.37 each for 12 parts + $12.78 shipping. Then turn around and get 3 parts from Mouser. And find some questionable parts on ebay for (any price) + $30 shipping. I got some "scrap" boards because I knew they had parts I need. I don't have an answer but get the parts then layout the PCB.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

For me it has been about 30 years buying Microchip's mcu ,and as I was down to using my last dsPIC33EV256GM104 ( as jpg ) wanted to replish my stock , thought it would be easy.... Nah . my usual UK supplier nil stock, also Farnell now have a £9.50 handling charge !

Obviously components are quite difficult these days, but Farnell were free postage and no handling charge if you had an account, and went over their minimum order charge.

A quick check shows it's now £40 minimum to get free postage etc. including non-account holders.

https://uk.farnell.com/help-delivery-information

 

[ronsimpson]

Farnell "available 3/14/22". That's not good news.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Farnell "available 3/14/22". That's not good news.

The Covid situation has decimated electronics supplies - I generally use RS Components (faster delivery), and then try Farnell if RS are out of stock - and RS (and Farnell, and everyone else) are out of stock of many items, with long (and mostly imaginary) delivery dates.

RS are currently in the process of changing delivery companies, so it'll be interesting to see if they are as good as ParcelForce - who are almost always Next Day (even if you don't order until the evening - before 8:00PM). Farnell tend to use UPS, who are pretty poor, and it's usually two days - and only VERY rarely next day.

 

[schmitt trigger]

Every body and everything is being impacted, not only VLSI silicon.

Where I work we require some specialty high voltage capacitors for which the next delivery is February 2022.

 

[schmitt trigger]

To put this into perspective how bad the situation is right now, the previous lead time record was 10 weeks.
And this was when the big earthquake and tsunami hit Japan.

 

[nsaspook]

For me it has been about 30 years buying Microchip's mcu ,and as I was down to using my last dsPIC33EV256GM104 ( as jpg ) wanted to replish my stock , thought it would be easy.... Nah . my usual UK supplier nil stock, also Farnell now have a £9.50 handling charge ! Only MC direct seem to have the 128 version (prog mem) available .. wondering how long this will last. perhaps i should move to other silicon ?
View attachment 133564

Every semi house on the planet has the same supply issues. People are selling every chip they can make to clients at a price premium. Some stock is reserved for direct marketing but not much. The supply issues will end when the semi market crashes again. Between now and that crash the future don't expect much slack from the suppliers or the fabs.

**broken link removed**

Not many industries are as consistently volatile as semiconductors. Year after year for decades, working in this industry has been akin to regularly climbing aboard an adults-only, furiously fast, roller-coaster journey.

During the past decade, the industry has gone through wild ups and downs in supply and demand. In the months leading up to the September 11 terrorist attacks, semiconductor company chip inventories were overflowing because of widespread anticipation of strong demand. After that event, many semiconductor companies dramatically scaled back chip production. It was a tough time to survive. Predicting demand has been one of the industry’s thorniest problems for decades. Companies consistently build too much inventory or not enough, and often at the wrong times.

 

[augustinetez]

Yep, tried to get some SI5351 ic's last couple of weeks - nil stock everywhere I looked until at least September next year.

Just as well it was 'just to have a few on hand' rather than 'I need it now for....'

 

[granddad]

I'm sort of all geared up for 44 pin TQFP , managed to get an order from MC direct (uk) for 4 dsPIC33EV128GM104 for 12 (ish) GBP delivered on 17 Sept.. think it was this year ....

 

[granddad]

Message to self. Start ( and keep ) an inventory , I needed a particular PIC24 , and as many ETO's will be aware , some IC's they are gold dust. so decided to rummage thru my boxes, well a nice surprise , I already have a few hiding away , so an inventory was started , wow I have 51 of various 16 bit PIC flavors .. should keep me going for a few years..
( Somewhere there is a 100 pin PIC24HJ256GP210 , need a steady hand for that beast )