3 ms·

I'm very loosely involved in the highly customized keyboard business, think runs of a couple hundred units. One vendor is having trouble finding any chip to de

by crote 6y ago

I'm very loosely involved in the highly customized keyboard business, think runs of a couple hundred units. One vendor is having trouble finding any chip to design for. The software stack supports a couple of dozen STM32 chip series, but none of them are even remotely available. I've seen a lead time of over 11 months. Before COVID, pretty much every single chip was in stock almost all of the time. Respinning a board isn't too difficult, but good luck doing that if there's no chip to respin it for.

structural 6y ago
Yep, we're hearing 52week lead times on pretty much all microcontrollers at the moment, with more esoteric parts being... somewhat more than that. A year ago you could buy 10k+ units of most common parts -- in stock -- from each of the major distributors.
baybal2 6y ago
> Respinning a board isn't too difficult, but good luck doing that if there's no chip to respin it for. Some people hoard toilet paper, some people hoard baby formula, some people hoard Shanghai apartments, some people hoard microchips... Got burned with same STM32s recently. A purchaser been shopping parts, and ordered a given model of MCU by muscle memory. The price has moved one zero overnight, and we ran for quite a sum.
- freeopinion 6y ago
  Some people fail to stock toilet people, some people fail to stock chip fabs.
neltnerb 6y ago
I don't doubt it, in the article the dog washing company specifically said that their design firm already had a solution that just required new PCBs. That is not sympathetic, that's very normal. What you're describing is sympathetic and hard to deal with. Their example was lucky about it and still ended up somehow quoted in the story.
stemthirtywat 6y ago
I wonder if that sort of library compatibility might be the reason for the shortages in those particular part lines? It looks easy to find STM32L0x2 chips in stock. Those are not supported by the QMK firmware, but they are very similar in terms of peripherals and features to the supported (and hard-to-find) STM32F0x2 lines. The main differences are a lower minimum operating voltage and more power management options, IIRC.
exmadscientist 6y ago
STM32 isn't the only Cortex-M microcontroller series in the world, you know. They're popular because they're pretty decent, low cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide variety of parts. However, their software sucks (okay, so do all of the other options...), their peripherals are not as good as some of the other options (in particular I'm thinking of peripheral clock trees when I say this, among other things), and their availability is the _worst_. Seriously, unless you're big enough that ST management actually knows your name, expect to have sudden availability issues with the STM32. This has been true for the last decade. It will remain true. (Many of these availability problems start at ST's wafer fab, so they're not shared by the other vendors.) I always advise clients who care about such things to consider other vendors.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > They're popular because they're pretty decent, low cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide variety of parts. Now find a single person who can program bare hardware on a short notice on above Arduino level. The current chip shortage has claimed 6 of our firmware devs, all hired by companies ready to spend just any money for anybody "who can replace that ____ing STM|NXP|Renesas thing" People downstream in the industry greatly overestimated their knowledge of the industry. Lots of tech companies around who had zero prior knowledge of embedded development, now jumping on it, and breaking their teeth. I haven't heard more fabulous questions like "Are there other microcontrollers than Intel, and AMD in the world?" this year than any time before.
  - kingsuper20 6y ago
    >Now find a single person who can program bare hardware on a short notice on above Arduino level. Wait, there's real money in that? Maybe I shouldn't waste my time just doing yard work. Sidenote: I just asked my wife about parts shortages at her workplace. Evidently you guys are right. I should get out more.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      Yep, I'd say today is the best opportunity to get a higher paid embedded job than any time before if anybody specifically targets people hiring on urgency. But a thing to remember is that people currently hiring themselves been likely neglecting their RnD before the crisis hit them.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by crote 6y ago

structural 6y ago

Yep, we're hearing 52week lead times on pretty much all microcontrollers at the moment, with more esoteric parts being... somewhat more than that. A year ago you could buy 10k+ units of most common parts -- in stock -- from each of the major distributors.

baybal2 6y ago

> Respinning a board isn't too difficult, but good luck doing that if there's no chip to respin it for. Some people hoard toilet paper, some people hoard baby formula, some people hoard Shanghai apartments, some people hoard microchips... Got burned with same STM32s recently. A purchaser been shopping parts, and ordered a given model of MCU by muscle memory. The price has moved one zero overnight, and we ran for quite a sum.

freeopinion 6y ago
Some people fail to stock toilet people, some people fail to stock chip fabs.

neltnerb 6y ago

I don't doubt it, in the article the dog washing company specifically said that their design firm already had a solution that just required new PCBs. That is not sympathetic, that's very normal. What you're describing is sympathetic and hard to deal with. Their example was lucky about it and still ended up somehow quoted in the story.

stemthirtywat 6y ago

I wonder if that sort of library compatibility might be the reason for the shortages in those particular part lines? It looks easy to find STM32L0x2 chips in stock. Those are not supported by the QMK firmware, but they are very similar in terms of peripherals and features to the supported (and hard-to-find) STM32F0x2 lines. The main differences are a lower minimum operating voltage and more power management options, IIRC.

exmadscientist 6y ago

STM32 isn't the only Cortex-M microcontroller series in the world, you know. They're popular because they're pretty decent, low cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide variety of parts. However, their software sucks (okay, so do all of the other options...), their peripherals are not as good as some of the other options (in particular I'm thinking of peripheral clock trees when I say this, among other things), and their availability is the _worst_. Seriously, unless you're big enough that ST management actually knows your name, expect to have sudden availability issues with the STM32. This has been true for the last decade. It will remain true. (Many of these availability problems start at ST's wafer fab, so they're not shared by the other vendors.) I always advise clients who care about such things to consider other vendors.

baybal2 6y ago
> They're popular because they're pretty decent, low cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide variety of parts. Now find a single person who can program bare hardware on a short notice on above Arduino level. The current chip shortage has claimed 6 of our firmware devs, all hired by companies ready to spend just any money for anybody "who can replace that ____ing STM|NXP|Renesas thing" People downstream in the industry greatly overestimated their knowledge of the industry. Lots of tech companies around who had zero prior knowledge of embedded development, now jumping on it, and breaking their teeth. I haven't heard more fabulous questions like "Are there other microcontrollers than Intel, and AMD in the world?" this year than any time before.
- kingsuper20 6y ago
  >Now find a single person who can program bare hardware on a short notice on above Arduino level. Wait, there's real money in that? Maybe I shouldn't waste my time just doing yard work. Sidenote: I just asked my wife about parts shortages at her workplace. Evidently you guys are right. I should get out more.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Yep, I'd say today is the best opportunity to get a higher paid embedded job than any time before if anybody specifically targets people hiring on urgency. But a thing to remember is that people currently hiring themselves been likely neglecting their RnD before the crisis hit them.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]