4 ms·

I was looking to buy parallel EEPROMs (DIP) a couple days ago and found they were pretty expensive and mostly unavailable. I was wondering if that's because thi

I was looking to buy parallel EEPROMs (DIP) a couple days ago and found they were pretty expensive and mostly unavailable. I was wondering if that's because this type of IC is rather niche these days, or whether it's due to what's called the "chip shortage". If anyone knows or has an educated opinion, please let me know...

mschuster91 5y ago
Probably because such ICs are rather niche indeed. Any way of re-architecting your system to use an SPI flash chip? If anything else fails, you could go the extreme route and get a microcontroller to "translate"...
AdrianB1 5y ago
Price gouging in most cases, supported by difficulties in transportation and customs. I work in manufacturing (not IT products) and this is what we see. Chip shortage is real, but not every single type of chip.
joezydeco 5y ago
It's a niche part and you shouldn't be surprised if it's discontinued soon. Think about migrating your design. I'm starting to see end-of-life notices for a lot of parts that I wouldn't normally see at their age, but if they're low runners that would totally make sense. If you see lead times longer than a year, that's your early warning.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  I imagine one end result of this supply squeeze is that a lot of bespoke or legacy parts will be finally removed from designs that have up until now been "good enough". To cite the most common example, vehicle manufacturers' most common supply pain-point is ICs built on a ~200nm process, which was state of the art between 1996-2000. I understand it makes sense to move slower for chips embedded in long-life devices, and they need additional validation; however, at some point if lead times are long enough and prices stay high it becomes reasonable to start that extended validation process on newer chips. This would hopefully mean consumers start seeing infotainment with much better performance in the second half of 2022, and this lines up with industry expectations of when the squeeze will lift.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > To cite the most common example, vehicle manufacturers' most common supply pain-point is ICs built on a ~200nm process, which was state of the art between 1996-2000. I'm a total layman, but that might be misunderstanding "state of the art." Larger feature sizes may be better for their applications if they allow the parts to be more reliable.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Qub3d 5y ago
      I meant the node itself was state of the art. The application reliability is important, but in practice will be balanced against cost of goods -- just like how consumer PCs use non-ECC memory and try to handle it in software (or just decide occasional crashes are acceptable), there would likely be additional failure compensation added in other areas to adjust for otherwise cheaper parts on a smaller process node. And if you think a car company wouldn't use a less-reliable part because of safety concerns, look at the Pinto: Ford knew it had a tendency to, erm, explode, but calculated paying off lawsuits would be cheaper than fixing the problem. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefit_analysis,_the_Pinto_Memo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefi...
  - joezydeco 5y ago
    Infotainment systems have multiple-year lead times and validating a PCB change can run just as long. Unless you're Tesla.
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    There are one to two multimedia SoCs in a car. There are hundreds to thousands of mixed-signal and power ASICs in a car. Those are on large nodes, not because they're outdated, but because that's what you use for power and mixed signal. TSMC N7 is great for that 2 GHz ARM quad-core SoC, but garbage when you need to drive a piezo fuel valve.
MisterTea 5y ago
In DIP packages? I purchased a few EEPROMS and Flash parts from Digikey recently to fix a old industrial laser. I spent like $5 on the EEproms and something like $2.50 for the equivalent flash parts. I was trying to see if I could migrate the machine to flash as the parts were pin compatible and the laser uses battery backed SRAM for storage. Worked perfectly.

mschuster91 5y ago

Probably because such ICs are rather niche indeed. Any way of re-architecting your system to use an SPI flash chip? If anything else fails, you could go the extreme route and get a microcontroller to "translate"...

AdrianB1 5y ago

Price gouging in most cases, supported by difficulties in transportation and customs. I work in manufacturing (not IT products) and this is what we see. Chip shortage is real, but not every single type of chip.

joezydeco 5y ago

It's a niche part and you shouldn't be surprised if it's discontinued soon. Think about migrating your design. I'm starting to see end-of-life notices for a lot of parts that I wouldn't normally see at their age, but if they're low runners that would totally make sense. If you see lead times longer than a year, that's your early warning.

Qub3d 5y ago
I imagine one end result of this supply squeeze is that a lot of bespoke or legacy parts will be finally removed from designs that have up until now been "good enough". To cite the most common example, vehicle manufacturers' most common supply pain-point is ICs built on a ~200nm process, which was state of the art between 1996-2000. I understand it makes sense to move slower for chips embedded in long-life devices, and they need additional validation; however, at some point if lead times are long enough and prices stay high it becomes reasonable to start that extended validation process on newer chips. This would hopefully mean consumers start seeing infotainment with much better performance in the second half of 2022, and this lines up with industry expectations of when the squeeze will lift.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > To cite the most common example, vehicle manufacturers' most common supply pain-point is ICs built on a ~200nm process, which was state of the art between 1996-2000. I'm a total layman, but that might be misunderstanding "state of the art." Larger feature sizes may be better for their applications if they allow the parts to be more reliable.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Qub3d 5y ago
    I meant the node itself was state of the art. The application reliability is important, but in practice will be balanced against cost of goods -- just like how consumer PCs use non-ECC memory and try to handle it in software (or just decide occasional crashes are acceptable), there would likely be additional failure compensation added in other areas to adjust for otherwise cheaper parts on a smaller process node. And if you think a car company wouldn't use a less-reliable part because of safety concerns, look at the Pinto: Ford knew it had a tendency to, erm, explode, but calculated paying off lawsuits would be cheaper than fixing the problem. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefit_analysis,_the_Pinto_Memo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefi...
- joezydeco 5y ago
  Infotainment systems have multiple-year lead times and validating a PCB change can run just as long. Unless you're Tesla.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  There are one to two multimedia SoCs in a car. There are hundreds to thousands of mixed-signal and power ASICs in a car. Those are on large nodes, not because they're outdated, but because that's what you use for power and mixed signal. TSMC N7 is great for that 2 GHz ARM quad-core SoC, but garbage when you need to drive a piezo fuel valve.

MisterTea 5y ago

In DIP packages? I purchased a few EEPROMS and Flash parts from Digikey recently to fix a old industrial laser. I spent like $5 on the EEproms and something like $2.50 for the equivalent flash parts. I was trying to see if I could migrate the machine to flash as the parts were pin compatible and the laser uses battery backed SRAM for storage. Worked perfectly.