13 ms·

Supply chain issues are killing everyone. You want to build a product? Great, here's the list of what you can't get this week. It's different from last week,

by Syonyk 4y ago

Supply chain issues are killing everyone. You want to build a product? Great, here's the list of what you can't get this week. It's different from last week, next week will be different too. Good luck! Parts that used to cost $0.50 are now $5+ (various ADCs and DACs come to mind as one I've been dealing with). God help you if you want trailer axles. Etc. There's only so much you can do with flexibility and "Redesign every few weeks for what's available for this batch" before your design costs and parts cost increases chew up all the available profits, even if you've designed for flexibility. "We can use any uC in this entire line!" "That line is on 54 week lead time. Yes, all the variants." Such is life in the decline.

camtarn 4y ago
Yep. We use smart PLCs (programmable logic controllers - basically an Intel Atom powered realtime platform with modular high-speed analogue/digital I/O) for a lot of our projects. For one project, we were planning on deploying a cheap PLC plus a thermocouple module and some SPI modules. Because of availability, that turned into buying thermocouple and SPI interface chips ourselves, and designing a custom PCB to interface those to a Raspberry Pi. And now of course Raspberry Pis are impossible to get, so while we managed to get hold of enough for the first run of deployments, we don't have any more of them - we even had to ship our tester Pi! It's a real scramble, and we've definitely lost a bunch of money on that project.
- rasz 4y ago
  Do you really need multicore linux computer with gigabyte of ram to send temperature over the network?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    That depends on how fast you're sending it, how you are sending it, how precise it is, and if edge calculations have to be run, and calibration workloads.
    - rasz 4y ago
      All valid points in 1985. Nowadays smallest cheapest microcontroller has more processing power than fastest desktop from 1995.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        And in the last 30+ years do you think that maybe some of what we do with temperature data has changed? Or how we interact with a network? Or the data that sensors can produce? If you think you can answer parents problems without even knowing the problem space, you're behaving foolishly.
        camtarn 4y ago
        Hey, it's alright - rasz just asked a question, and it was a fair one :)
        vorpalhex 4y ago
        There's asking a question to learn and there's indicating that someone did something the wrong way without understanding the problem space. Understand the problem, then propose solutions. Anything else is ass backwards.
        rasz 4y ago
        OP described remote temperature sensor for a PLC. What you might want to do with data might changed, but how we gather it only got optimized down to specialized controller chips. Amplification, compensation, linearization - all taken care of by dedicated interface chips, something like AD849x, MAX6675/MAX31855 or ADS1118. There is nothing left to do at the remote end that cant be done further down the line. Measurement is pretty much Push Button, Receive Bacon to the point you can build your own soldering station with arduino, one of those chips, mosfet and a display module in 100 lines of code.
    - com2kid 4y ago
      When it comes to sensors and latency, you can use a 200mhz cortex m3 with a bespoke runtime you write in a couple weeks, or you can throw a real OS on top of multiple Ghz and cores in order to make up for the overhead of having a real OS. SRAM running at 200mhz with 1 cycle latency can perform what looks like miracles when placed side by side with DRAM running at LOLWTF Ghz that is stuck behind 100 cycles of delay talking to the CPU that first tries to work its way through multiple steps of onboard cache and lookup buffers and all sorts of fun things. Embedded controls can do stupid amazing things with very little resources because all of a sudden you have removed a huge constant delay from all memory accesses. Throughput, however, they don't do so well on throughput. :-D
  - camtarn 4y ago
    Yep, that's a fair point: both the Raspberry Pis and the smart PLCs were indeed absolutely overkill for the project. However, they're what we know best, and minimising development time for a small prototype multi-site deployment was more of a concern than using expensive-ish hardware. For production, obviously we'd move to something less ridiculous.
  - willis936 4y ago
    No and you don't want it either. In lieu of reliable hardware (PLCs), it is what is needed for virtual PLCs.
shabble 4y ago
bonus fun if you're in a regulated industry and any BoM change is going to be, at the minimum, an external test-lab redoing all your certifications, and in the worst case, a brand new product you need to submit to your regulating authority. No wonder there are some $5 MCUs going for $500+ each (and apparently selling well at those prices, even)
- cyphertruck 4y ago
  That’s not a bonus, that’s the entire point. Regulations hamstring companies and then deny them the ability to even comply with the regulations because other regulations have hamstrung the supply chain after regulations forced everyone onto vulnerable supply chains in the first place. So instead of people getting rich by innovating and making other people’s lives better, the people getting rich are the ones taking bribes (“campaign contributions” they get to keep forever) for reducing the impact of those regulations.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    The thing is, those regulations were put in place to solve a problem. They might not have been the best solution, but there is no way to know without going back and researching exactly what the problem was they were trying to solve. That’s on top of the fact that we are always dealing with incomplete information.
  - zrobotics 4y ago
    Umm, I'm pretty OK with medical suppliers not being able to sub in no-name or grey-market substitutions that may have unknown silicon bugs. Regulation isn't always bad, and being in a regulated industry had some of these problems even before the component shortage. Sure, subbing a MCU for an unknown supplier in a kids toy isn't likely to cause any serious problems, but in anything that can hurt or kill people it's objectively a good thing that there are regulations in place to prevent safety issues. Ive heard the same complaints about food regulations, but it's objectively a good thing that a consumer can purchase anything (that isn't expired) from a grocery store with near certainty that it won't make them I'll. That same surety can't be had in countries with more lax food standards.
jjoonathan 4y ago
The EEs are spinning alternative designs, the SWEs are writing cart sniping bots, the Supply Chain guys are trying to figure out if anyone with chips can be compensated for their consideration, ASML is desoldering chips from washing machines so they can make machines that make more chips, Influencers are using clout to beg for chips https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chip+shortage+adafruit https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chip+shortage+a... Et tu, ATMEGA328P? It's getting very real very fast out there.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >ASML is desoldering chips from washing machines It's not what ASML does - ASML exec reported that some other company does this
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    And according to the New York Times, this is the reason that Russian troops are looting major appliances from Ukraine, and trucking them back home. There must be some interesting chips in washing machines these days.
    - honkler 4y ago
      they want a direct line to NSA
    - nebula8804 4y ago
      Why not just pull the circuit boards and truck those home? Do you really have to take the rest of the machine?
      - tomxor 4y ago
        Maybe they are... alternatively maybe they aren't and it's simply easier and faster to tell troops to chuck washing machines onto trucks rather than spend time dismantling them and learning how to identify the relevant parts and remove them without damage, not to mention Russia has a lot of spare fuel now.
floren 4y ago
I designed a small circuit back in January. I ended up going with a PIC microcontroller because it was the only thing I could find that supported USB and was in-stock. I ordered enough parts to build four, from Digikey. Now, 6 months later, I want to build some more, and about half of the BOM is out of stock on Digikey. I was able to source most stuff on Mouser instead, but the switches I used weren't available anywhere and I had to go to a different manufacturer, driving the cost from $12 of switches per build to $18. Huge pain in the ass, but at least I was able to get it done. I feel for the people who designed around particular parts and are now starting at 2023 "in stock" dates.
ok_dad 4y ago
I used to work in medical device supplier quality and incoming inspection and I am so happy I don't work there right now, it must be an absolute shit show with different/new part numbers, probably tons of first article inspections, and spec changes galore.
aconsult1 4y ago
I'm a co-founder of a niche multi-effect pedalboard company and we're filing for bankruptcy in Germany this very week. It's not only the crazy price changes and random stocking issues. Small players have zero leverage with suppliers and are a much weaker link in this whole chaos. Good luck trying to find investors willing to put money to drive growth. Hardware startups is absolutely brutal. No surprise so many fail after a "successful" Kickstarter campaign. I'm actually surprised we're only going under nearly 30 months after the pandemic started. I would bet that millions of people will be unemployed because a gazillion of small companies will shut off in the next 18 months. I'll never start (or work for) a hardware company for the rest of my life. Software is so much a better business to invest that makes me cry just thinking how much money and years I lost of my life.
- webspaceadam 4y ago
  das tut mir wirklich leid. nur das beste für die zukunft. manchmal wird mut nicht belohnt :(
- rPlayer6554 4y ago
  I'm so sorry to hear about that, it seems really frustrating. I hope things work out for you.
- lnsru 4y ago
  I fell you! I am thinking about nice 3D sensor for robotic applications. I have hardware prototype and rudimentary software. However no parts are available for sale, so I am not able to advance to production ready version. Very frustrating! Happily I can fund my development from other sources and have long runway. I dodged a large caliber bullet not going all in with this single project 18 months ago.
  - aconsult1 4y ago
    I don't want to deposit fear into your dreams. You should follow what your heart tells you. But not going all in was probably the smartest decision you've made. Good luck!
- 4y ago
unionpivo 4y ago
Problem is most of the world was in "just in time manufacturing" and having no inventory. Then there were supply issues, and everybody is not only trying to get their hand on the parts they need, but they also try to stockpile some components just in case. Essentially marked changed completely, and is throwing off all kinds of estimates and people are still trying to figure out what is what. Buyers are trying to stockpile as much as they can get, I know at least one company that bought run of 50k stm micros, not for any particular project, just in case they will need them. Hardware companies are claiming they are increasing capacity, but are doing it reluctantly, because they think it will be blown over, and they will have a lot of extra capacity, that they wont be able to sell.

by Syonyk 4y ago

camtarn 4y ago

Yep. We use smart PLCs (programmable logic controllers - basically an Intel Atom powered realtime platform with modular high-speed analogue/digital I/O) for a lot of our projects. For one project, we were planning on deploying a cheap PLC plus a thermocouple module and some SPI modules. Because of availability, that turned into buying thermocouple and SPI interface chips ourselves, and designing a custom PCB to interface those to a Raspberry Pi. And now of course Raspberry Pis are impossible to get, so while we managed to get hold of enough for the first run of deployments, we don't have any more of them - we even had to ship our tester Pi! It's a real scramble, and we've definitely lost a bunch of money on that project.

rasz 4y ago
Do you really need multicore linux computer with gigabyte of ram to send temperature over the network?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  That depends on how fast you're sending it, how you are sending it, how precise it is, and if edge calculations have to be run, and calibration workloads.
  - rasz 4y ago
    All valid points in 1985. Nowadays smallest cheapest microcontroller has more processing power than fastest desktop from 1995.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      And in the last 30+ years do you think that maybe some of what we do with temperature data has changed? Or how we interact with a network? Or the data that sensors can produce? If you think you can answer parents problems without even knowing the problem space, you're behaving foolishly.
      - camtarn 4y ago
        Hey, it's alright - rasz just asked a question, and it was a fair one :)
        vorpalhex 4y ago
        There's asking a question to learn and there's indicating that someone did something the wrong way without understanding the problem space. Understand the problem, then propose solutions. Anything else is ass backwards.
      - rasz 4y ago
        OP described remote temperature sensor for a PLC. What you might want to do with data might changed, but how we gather it only got optimized down to specialized controller chips. Amplification, compensation, linearization - all taken care of by dedicated interface chips, something like AD849x, MAX6675/MAX31855 or ADS1118. There is nothing left to do at the remote end that cant be done further down the line. Measurement is pretty much Push Button, Receive Bacon to the point you can build your own soldering station with arduino, one of those chips, mosfet and a display module in 100 lines of code.
  - com2kid 4y ago
    When it comes to sensors and latency, you can use a 200mhz cortex m3 with a bespoke runtime you write in a couple weeks, or you can throw a real OS on top of multiple Ghz and cores in order to make up for the overhead of having a real OS. SRAM running at 200mhz with 1 cycle latency can perform what looks like miracles when placed side by side with DRAM running at LOLWTF Ghz that is stuck behind 100 cycles of delay talking to the CPU that first tries to work its way through multiple steps of onboard cache and lookup buffers and all sorts of fun things. Embedded controls can do stupid amazing things with very little resources because all of a sudden you have removed a huge constant delay from all memory accesses. Throughput, however, they don't do so well on throughput. :-D
- camtarn 4y ago
  Yep, that's a fair point: both the Raspberry Pis and the smart PLCs were indeed absolutely overkill for the project. However, they're what we know best, and minimising development time for a small prototype multi-site deployment was more of a concern than using expensive-ish hardware. For production, obviously we'd move to something less ridiculous.
- willis936 4y ago
  No and you don't want it either. In lieu of reliable hardware (PLCs), it is what is needed for virtual PLCs.

shabble 4y ago

bonus fun if you're in a regulated industry and any BoM change is going to be, at the minimum, an external test-lab redoing all your certifications, and in the worst case, a brand new product you need to submit to your regulating authority. No wonder there are some $5 MCUs going for $500+ each (and apparently selling well at those prices, even)

cyphertruck 4y ago
That’s not a bonus, that’s the entire point. Regulations hamstring companies and then deny them the ability to even comply with the regulations because other regulations have hamstrung the supply chain after regulations forced everyone onto vulnerable supply chains in the first place. So instead of people getting rich by innovating and making other people’s lives better, the people getting rich are the ones taking bribes (“campaign contributions” they get to keep forever) for reducing the impact of those regulations.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  The thing is, those regulations were put in place to solve a problem. They might not have been the best solution, but there is no way to know without going back and researching exactly what the problem was they were trying to solve. That’s on top of the fact that we are always dealing with incomplete information.
- zrobotics 4y ago
  Umm, I'm pretty OK with medical suppliers not being able to sub in no-name or grey-market substitutions that may have unknown silicon bugs. Regulation isn't always bad, and being in a regulated industry had some of these problems even before the component shortage. Sure, subbing a MCU for an unknown supplier in a kids toy isn't likely to cause any serious problems, but in anything that can hurt or kill people it's objectively a good thing that there are regulations in place to prevent safety issues. Ive heard the same complaints about food regulations, but it's objectively a good thing that a consumer can purchase anything (that isn't expired) from a grocery store with near certainty that it won't make them I'll. That same surety can't be had in countries with more lax food standards.

jjoonathan 4y ago

The EEs are spinning alternative designs, the SWEs are writing cart sniping bots, the Supply Chain guys are trying to figure out if anyone with chips can be compensated for their consideration, ASML is desoldering chips from washing machines so they can make machines that make more chips, Influencers are using clout to beg for chips https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chip+shortage+adafruit https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chip+shortage+a... Et tu, ATMEGA328P? It's getting very real very fast out there.

KptMarchewa 4y ago
>ASML is desoldering chips from washing machines It's not what ASML does - ASML exec reported that some other company does this
- reaperducer 4y ago
  And according to the New York Times, this is the reason that Russian troops are looting major appliances from Ukraine, and trucking them back home. There must be some interesting chips in washing machines these days.
  - honkler 4y ago
    they want a direct line to NSA
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Why not just pull the circuit boards and truck those home? Do you really have to take the rest of the machine?
    - tomxor 4y ago
      Maybe they are... alternatively maybe they aren't and it's simply easier and faster to tell troops to chuck washing machines onto trucks rather than spend time dismantling them and learning how to identify the relevant parts and remove them without damage, not to mention Russia has a lot of spare fuel now.

floren 4y ago

I designed a small circuit back in January. I ended up going with a PIC microcontroller because it was the only thing I could find that supported USB and was in-stock. I ordered enough parts to build four, from Digikey. Now, 6 months later, I want to build some more, and about half of the BOM is out of stock on Digikey. I was able to source most stuff on Mouser instead, but the switches I used weren't available anywhere and I had to go to a different manufacturer, driving the cost from $12 of switches per build to $18. Huge pain in the ass, but at least I was able to get it done. I feel for the people who designed around particular parts and are now starting at 2023 "in stock" dates.

ok_dad 4y ago

I used to work in medical device supplier quality and incoming inspection and I am so happy I don't work there right now, it must be an absolute shit show with different/new part numbers, probably tons of first article inspections, and spec changes galore.

aconsult1 4y ago

I'm a co-founder of a niche multi-effect pedalboard company and we're filing for bankruptcy in Germany this very week. It's not only the crazy price changes and random stocking issues. Small players have zero leverage with suppliers and are a much weaker link in this whole chaos. Good luck trying to find investors willing to put money to drive growth. Hardware startups is absolutely brutal. No surprise so many fail after a "successful" Kickstarter campaign. I'm actually surprised we're only going under nearly 30 months after the pandemic started. I would bet that millions of people will be unemployed because a gazillion of small companies will shut off in the next 18 months. I'll never start (or work for) a hardware company for the rest of my life. Software is so much a better business to invest that makes me cry just thinking how much money and years I lost of my life.

webspaceadam 4y ago
das tut mir wirklich leid. nur das beste für die zukunft. manchmal wird mut nicht belohnt :(
rPlayer6554 4y ago
I'm so sorry to hear about that, it seems really frustrating. I hope things work out for you.
lnsru 4y ago
I fell you! I am thinking about nice 3D sensor for robotic applications. I have hardware prototype and rudimentary software. However no parts are available for sale, so I am not able to advance to production ready version. Very frustrating! Happily I can fund my development from other sources and have long runway. I dodged a large caliber bullet not going all in with this single project 18 months ago.
- aconsult1 4y ago
  I don't want to deposit fear into your dreams. You should follow what your heart tells you. But not going all in was probably the smartest decision you've made. Good luck!
4y ago

unionpivo 4y ago

Problem is most of the world was in "just in time manufacturing" and having no inventory. Then there were supply issues, and everybody is not only trying to get their hand on the parts they need, but they also try to stockpile some components just in case. Essentially marked changed completely, and is throwing off all kinds of estimates and people are still trying to figure out what is what. Buyers are trying to stockpile as much as they can get, I know at least one company that bought run of 50k stm micros, not for any particular project, just in case they will need them. Hardware companies are claiming they are increasing capacity, but are doing it reluctantly, because they think it will be blown over, and they will have a lot of extra capacity, that they wont be able to sell.