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Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking?

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On 16/06/2022 08:46, Rick C wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:35:56 PM UTC-4, Hans-Bernhard Bröker
> wrote:
>> Am 15.06.2022 um 16:12 schrieb Uwe Bonnes:
>> 
>>> In times of allocation and part shortage, a "prudent" selection
>>> is not easy!
>> Amen. Or, as the saying goes:
>> 
>> "All prognoses are hard, even more so those concerning the
>> future."
>> 
>> (Made famous by Niels Bohr, but may have been a widely known in his
>> home country of Denmark before that).
>> 
>> Let's face it: unless you're a major customer (and no, an order
>> volume of a million units does not reliably make you one), any and
>> all expectations about parts availability in the micro controller
>> market that reach further than a few months into the future are
>> recklessly optimistic. And that was how it was _before_ the
>> pandemic and all its side effects.
>> 

Major customers are in exactly the same boat.  Car manufacturers have 
had to pause production, or switch to different models and delay 
deliveries, because they can't get the parts.  HP can't get parts for 
its printers, D-Link can't get components for their switches.  Even the 
companies that make the electronics for the machines that make 
components can't get the parts they need to get new semiconductor plants 
online.

>> If you need to be sure you have those chips in quantity x over the
>> run of a given product, and x has fewer than 7 digits, your only
>> truly safe bet is to stockpile the whole lot up front. The
>> next-safest plan would be to stockpile enough of them to tide you
>> over the conservatively estimated time for a redesign of the board
>> and most of the lower-level software. Obviously neither of those
>> options is cheap; but the main alternative is that you may one day
>> have to discontinue your whole product because that one part
>> suddenly turned into unobtainium.
> 
> So how do you stockpile inventory for a product when you don't know
> the ultimate sales volume?  I designed a board for a company 14 years
> ago.  I originally sold maybe 100 a year average (100 piece minimum).
> Volumes grew until I was getting orders for several thousand in one
> year and none in the next.  Now I have an order for 10,000 pieces.
> The company I sell these to has always refused to commit to any
> quantity.  It's not always feasible to plan for future production, so
> this idea is clearly not a panacea.
> 

You do the best you can, adapting as you go.  If you can stockpile - you 
can get the parts, and you have the cash flow - do so.  If not, there's 
a lot of luck involved no matter how skilled and hard-working you are. 
If you can spread your risks, making a variety of different devices, 
that's a good way to lower the overall risk.

Otherwise you make what you can, when you can, and hope your customers 
are still around when you are finally able to deliver the boards.  At 
least there is little risk of them going to your competition in the 
meantime, as everyone has the same challenges getting the parts.

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4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-12 18:44 -0700
  Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-06-13 09:52 +0200
    Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Clifford Heath <no.spam@please.net> - 2022-06-13 22:11 +1000
    Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-06-14 07:46 +0200
  Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Stef <me@this.is.invalid> - 2022-06-13 14:47 +0200
    Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-14 08:34 -0700
      Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Stef <me@this.is.invalid> - 2022-06-14 23:29 +0200
        Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-06-15 08:55 +0200
          Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Stef <me@this.is.invalid> - 2022-06-15 09:25 +0200
          Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? pozz <pozzugno@gmail.com> - 2022-06-15 10:38 +0200
            Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-06-15 15:20 +0200
            Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-15 06:53 -0700
              Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Uwe Bonnes <bon@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> - 2022-06-15 14:12 +0000
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? pozz <pozzugno@gmail.com> - 2022-06-15 17:11 +0200
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-06-15 17:20 +0200
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-15 09:12 -0700
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Hans-Bernhard Bröker <HBBroeker@t-online.de> - 2022-06-16 01:35 +0200
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-15 23:46 -0700
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-06-16 09:08 +0200
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2022-06-16 13:47 +0000
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-06-17 09:15 +0200
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Stef <me@this.is.invalid> - 2022-06-16 09:34 +0200
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-16 08:03 -0700
                Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? chris <chris-nospam@tridac.net> - 2022-06-17 01:05 +0100
              Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? pozz <pozzugno@gmail.com> - 2022-06-15 17:16 +0200
  Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-06-14 07:51 +0200
    Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> - 2022-06-14 08:48 -0700
  Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2022-06-14 21:48 +0100
    Re: 4 Bit MCUs, Still Alive and Kicking? Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2022-06-17 13:36 +0200

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