5 ms·

> Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. This is just not true. But when it happens, there is usually an announcement well ahead o

by TomVDB 5y ago

> Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. This is just not true. But when it happens, there is usually an announcement well ahead of time (e.g. 1 year), as well as a last time buy option. Historically, there has never been a need to buy the chips of all the boards of a revision. If you are in the position of being able to buy all the components of all the boards you'll ever make for a certain revision, you're probably just above hobbyist level.

neltnerb 5y ago
I meant the parts that are not common enough to have pin-compatible substitutes from multiple vendors. I have worked with people way above hobbyist level and it is those obnoxious non-standard parts that are the ones that suddenly go out of stock everywhere even if they aren't actually obsoleted. Sometimes they just haven't done a run manufacturing that part number in a while and the stock ran out. I've seen this happen with everyone from ST to Microchip to Atmel (when it existed) to Qualcomm to Analog Devices (though interestingly never Texas Instruments so far); this is just something that happens... Thank you for the clarification, my initial comment was flippant and needed like four paragraphs of caveats.
- TomVDB 5y ago
  “The parts that don’t have a pin compatible substitute” is usually 80% of your total BOM cost. It’s not a helpful clarification. Let’s take something totally ordinary like an STM32 MCU, and let’s ignore for a moment that there are now some clones on the market, with questionable compatibility at times. Even though they’re unique parts, there is no way anybody sane would stock up on those for the lifetime of a product revision. It was never needed and it’s ridiculous to plan for a black swan event like the one we’re experiencing now. And here’s why: even if you had planned for a sudden shortage of an STM32, you’d still be screwed on some generic components. Because I’ve seen people get stuck recently because they couldn’t source certain generic diodes. It makes no financial sense to always plan for the worst possible case. The whole reason distributors exist is because they are the buffer that moderates spikes in supply and demand. The system has worked very well for decades. It’s much better to be right or wrong along with everybody else than to be wrong 99% of the time (and waste margins compared to the competition), and being able to say “I told you so” to the rest once. And that 99% is not hyperbole.
  - sharklazer 5y ago
    I’ve been stocking up on various chips and components for the last month. Almost grabbed some STM32s. Maybe if I can find them. I have this growing gut feeling we are at the peak of technology... at least for a while.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      On the other hand, I expect this whole mess to propel technology way forward, especially the microchip market. Everyone can now see that there is extreme demand for it and what is compatibility and standardization good for.
    - brongondwana 5y ago
      You and a bunch of others, and now all the supermarkets are out of toilet paper.
      - sharklazer 5y ago
        Not really. I have a lot of musical equipment. The chips I have are relatively uncommon. Not toilet paper. I’ve only got enough to duplicate things and keep them running if need be. I suspect what I will have will last around end of my life. Enough to just keep things going. I’m not a hoarder, I’ve kept my focus limited and goals clear. But you’re an assumptive a*hat.
        brongondwana 5y ago
        Guilty as charged. I was part joking, part serious. I've had to order more than immediately needed capacity a couple of times in my life to tide over expected difficulties in getting timely equipment. Either managers who were slow at approving things or (today) expected shipping delays meaning I need enough capacity for the expected next year rather than expected next 2 months. Multiply that by everyone, you get a rush on the bank. Interestingly I saw an analysis a while back (citation not provided because I'm about to go sleep and have an early start tomorrow) that just the change in demand from office to home could account for a lot of the increased toilet paper demand. People were still shitting the same amount but they were using home-grade rolls rather than industrial giant office rolls, of which there was a glut!
rapjr9 5y ago
Depends on the chip manufacturer. Nordic obsoletes versions of their Bluetooth chips at the drop of a hat. I worked for 2 years on a smartwatch that used the nRF51822 and they went through about 8 revisions of the chip during that time, occasionally obsoleting the software API as well. It was a nightmare to work with. We open sourced our design but it is useless to anyone now because they changed the hardware and API's yet again. Any open source hardware likely encounters the same problem eventually. I think this churn in parts is hurting innovation since it makes things very difficult for small companies just starting out. It also wastes enormous amounts of human effort redesigning boards and rewriting software. People who could be inventing new products are tied up rehashing the existing ones. The cost to the world must be enormous. I do not understand how anyone could think this is a good thing and a reasonable way to run things. It is completely insane.
- Lucero 5y ago
  Would you use an NRF chip today, or is there another you would recommend? I'm working on a board with an NRF52840 and have been annoyed with their API. There are so many versions of their API and software, some are marked deprecated but the interface is still used in their latest code/examples. Nordic also doesn't provide a code generator to configure the hardware. I started with them since their chips seemed popular, they provided the BLE profile I needed, and come with a Segger debug license.
  - rapjr9 5y ago
    There is not a huge range of choices. I considered TI's chips and worked with a student who had some measure of success using BT on a dev board. I would recommend looking over the support forums for any candidate chips, you will quickly get an idea of what the development experience is like. If the functionality you need is simple (e.g., just sending periodic data from a sensor) then something that wraps the SDK's API and provides a higher level simplified interface would be faster and easier to use (Arduino, MBed). If you need low level access, complete control, and special functionality there are few choices, namely the big chip companies that make BT chips and they all seem pretty bad. My theory is that Bluetooth is so hugely complex as a barrier to market entry (also companies like Nordic want to sell you consulting services). We wanted simultaneous Central and multiple Peripheral channels (a connection to a phone and to multiple sensors) so our only choice at the time was use two chips or use Nordic, and a smartwatch has tight space requirements. In general if you just need radio and it does not have to be Bluetooth I would avoid Bluetooth. ANT was a real pleasure to work with and has some nice development and testing tools and there are some phones with ANT radios (Sony if I remember correctly). Zigbee might be another alternative.

by TomVDB 5y ago

neltnerb 5y ago

I meant the parts that are not common enough to have pin-compatible substitutes from multiple vendors. I have worked with people way above hobbyist level and it is those obnoxious non-standard parts that are the ones that suddenly go out of stock everywhere even if they aren't actually obsoleted. Sometimes they just haven't done a run manufacturing that part number in a while and the stock ran out. I've seen this happen with everyone from ST to Microchip to Atmel (when it existed) to Qualcomm to Analog Devices (though interestingly never Texas Instruments so far); this is just something that happens... Thank you for the clarification, my initial comment was flippant and needed like four paragraphs of caveats.

TomVDB 5y ago
“The parts that don’t have a pin compatible substitute” is usually 80% of your total BOM cost. It’s not a helpful clarification. Let’s take something totally ordinary like an STM32 MCU, and let’s ignore for a moment that there are now some clones on the market, with questionable compatibility at times. Even though they’re unique parts, there is no way anybody sane would stock up on those for the lifetime of a product revision. It was never needed and it’s ridiculous to plan for a black swan event like the one we’re experiencing now. And here’s why: even if you had planned for a sudden shortage of an STM32, you’d still be screwed on some generic components. Because I’ve seen people get stuck recently because they couldn’t source certain generic diodes. It makes no financial sense to always plan for the worst possible case. The whole reason distributors exist is because they are the buffer that moderates spikes in supply and demand. The system has worked very well for decades. It’s much better to be right or wrong along with everybody else than to be wrong 99% of the time (and waste margins compared to the competition), and being able to say “I told you so” to the rest once. And that 99% is not hyperbole.
- sharklazer 5y ago
  I’ve been stocking up on various chips and components for the last month. Almost grabbed some STM32s. Maybe if I can find them. I have this growing gut feeling we are at the peak of technology... at least for a while.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    On the other hand, I expect this whole mess to propel technology way forward, especially the microchip market. Everyone can now see that there is extreme demand for it and what is compatibility and standardization good for.
  - brongondwana 5y ago
    You and a bunch of others, and now all the supermarkets are out of toilet paper.
    - sharklazer 5y ago
      Not really. I have a lot of musical equipment. The chips I have are relatively uncommon. Not toilet paper. I’ve only got enough to duplicate things and keep them running if need be. I suspect what I will have will last around end of my life. Enough to just keep things going. I’m not a hoarder, I’ve kept my focus limited and goals clear. But you’re an assumptive a*hat.
      - brongondwana 5y ago
        Guilty as charged. I was part joking, part serious. I've had to order more than immediately needed capacity a couple of times in my life to tide over expected difficulties in getting timely equipment. Either managers who were slow at approving things or (today) expected shipping delays meaning I need enough capacity for the expected next year rather than expected next 2 months. Multiply that by everyone, you get a rush on the bank. Interestingly I saw an analysis a while back (citation not provided because I'm about to go sleep and have an early start tomorrow) that just the change in demand from office to home could account for a lot of the increased toilet paper demand. People were still shitting the same amount but they were using home-grade rolls rather than industrial giant office rolls, of which there was a glut!

rapjr9 5y ago

Depends on the chip manufacturer. Nordic obsoletes versions of their Bluetooth chips at the drop of a hat. I worked for 2 years on a smartwatch that used the nRF51822 and they went through about 8 revisions of the chip during that time, occasionally obsoleting the software API as well. It was a nightmare to work with. We open sourced our design but it is useless to anyone now because they changed the hardware and API's yet again. Any open source hardware likely encounters the same problem eventually. I think this churn in parts is hurting innovation since it makes things very difficult for small companies just starting out. It also wastes enormous amounts of human effort redesigning boards and rewriting software. People who could be inventing new products are tied up rehashing the existing ones. The cost to the world must be enormous. I do not understand how anyone could think this is a good thing and a reasonable way to run things. It is completely insane.

Lucero 5y ago
Would you use an NRF chip today, or is there another you would recommend? I'm working on a board with an NRF52840 and have been annoyed with their API. There are so many versions of their API and software, some are marked deprecated but the interface is still used in their latest code/examples. Nordic also doesn't provide a code generator to configure the hardware. I started with them since their chips seemed popular, they provided the BLE profile I needed, and come with a Segger debug license.
- rapjr9 5y ago
  There is not a huge range of choices. I considered TI's chips and worked with a student who had some measure of success using BT on a dev board. I would recommend looking over the support forums for any candidate chips, you will quickly get an idea of what the development experience is like. If the functionality you need is simple (e.g., just sending periodic data from a sensor) then something that wraps the SDK's API and provides a higher level simplified interface would be faster and easier to use (Arduino, MBed). If you need low level access, complete control, and special functionality there are few choices, namely the big chip companies that make BT chips and they all seem pretty bad. My theory is that Bluetooth is so hugely complex as a barrier to market entry (also companies like Nordic want to sell you consulting services). We wanted simultaneous Central and multiple Peripheral channels (a connection to a phone and to multiple sensors) so our only choice at the time was use two chips or use Nordic, and a smartwatch has tight space requirements. In general if you just need radio and it does not have to be Bluetooth I would avoid Bluetooth. ANT was a real pleasure to work with and has some nice development and testing tools and there are some phones with ANT radios (Sony if I remember correctly). Zigbee might be another alternative.