> >> I just received this letter from our microchip's distributor. it seems > >> they will lost their one advantage amoung other uC manufacturers - > >> their uC were always available in stock or 3-4 weeks. > >> Any comments? Did you get the same letter?> >I didn't get such a letter. When I tried to order Atmel AVR last > >November, I was told the lead time to be in the order of 12-16 weeks. > > > I have also experienced this with a range of Atmel micros, so it's not > just Microchip. > > Atmel don't offer you a "pay extra get them earlier" deal like microchip > are doing. > -- > Tim MitchellBad News: When you are sold out, you are sold out. Good News: Delivery date has not change so if the lead time was 12-16 week in November, (Delivery in March-April) the lead time now probably has dropped to maybe 8-10 weeks (Still delivery in March-April) -- Best Regards Ulf at atmel dot com These comments are intended to be my own opinion and they may, or may not be shared by my employer, Atmel Sweden.
What's going on with Microchip?
Started by ●January 22, 2004
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
Tsvetan Usunov wrote:> cbarn24050@aol.com (CBarn24050) wrote in message > > > The moral is allways keep a stock of your critical single > > sourced components. > > It's OK for running projects which you can plan ahead, but what > to say to customer with new design who wants 10K units tomorrow > (what usually customers with new projects do)? Please wait 3 > months to get the PICs or pay 20% more?This is nothing new. At least today you normally have only one or two critical parts. When we built everything out of 7400 series logic we would often have to scurry around through 10 or more distributors to find any parts whatsoever, and still have 6 months or more delivery. The price was a large variable. Repeat the process for each of a few dozen chips. Those weren't even sole-sourced. A few years ago nobody in their right mind would design in a sole-sourced product without a very good reason. The situation would flip from shortage to plenty and back every few years. Nowadays the US distributors seem to be gone: Cramer, Arrow, Schweber at least. Even Radio Shack was in the game. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net) Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems. <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
"Tsvetan Usunov" <tusunov@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:dd52331e.0401220819.a847ae3@posting.google.com...> cbarn24050@aol.com (CBarn24050) wrote in messagenews:<20040122051654.12611.00000628@mb-m29.aol.com>...> > The moral is allways keep a stock of your critical single sourcedcomponents.> > It's OK for running projects which you can plan ahead, but what to say > to customer with new design who wants 10K units tomorrow (what usually > customers with new projects do)? Please wait 3 months to get the PICs > or pay 20% more? > I don't think he will understand this. >I think everyone needs to understand that normal semiconductor company lead time *is* 16 weeks. This is the time it takes from start of production to delivery of goods. A semiconductor can only offer shorter leadtime if they happen to have stock. Good planning ensures that stocks never run out. Bad information combined with never running out of stock is probably an indication of poor use of money. Parts will become more expensive if you maintain a stock which is way above the need. If you dont agree, that it is waste, then why not order two years maximum usage now ;-) By commitment to volume through annual contracts you can guarantee yourself parts, because the semiconductor vendor can plan accordingly. Without committment, the semiconductor company tries to make an intelligent guess, which fails when the sudden upturn comes, and everyone starts to put in orders. Current stock is sold out, and you see a temporary increase in leadtime until new batches can be completed. As long as the factory is not running at max capacity like Atmel did a couple of years ago, the lead times will soon go back to normal.When max capacity is reached, new orders will book from followon batches, and leadtimes will be longer than the 16 weeks. The situation at Atmel is very different now since the AVR is produced in two fabs. The original AVR fab location in Colorado and the large fab bought from Siemens in North Tyneside U.K.. The North Tyneside fab will allow doubling of the Atmel wafer capacity so that should make people a little more comfortable. -- Best Regards Ulf at atmel dot com These comments are intended to be my own opinion and they may, or may not be shared by my employer, Atmel Sweden.
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
On 22 Jan 2004 08:19:57 -0800, tusunov@my-deja.com (Tsvetan Usunov) wrote:>cbarn24050@aol.com (CBarn24050) wrote in message news:<20040122051654.12611.00000628@mb-m29.aol.com>... >> The moral is allways keep a stock of your critical single sourced components. > >It's OK for running projects which you can plan ahead, but what to say >to customer with new design who wants 10K units tomorrow (what usually >customers with new projects do)? Please wait 3 months to get the PICs >or pay 20% more? >I don't think he will understand this.Tough. He can't have it. Maybe next time he will plan ahead more. In times of limited capacity, you won't get a different answer from any other supplier, unless you chance upon a stash of devices at a distributor or on the surplus market.
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
CBFalconer wrote:> Tsvetan Usunov wrote: > >>cbarn24050@aol.com (CBarn24050) wrote in message >> >> >>>The moral is allways keep a stock of your critical single >>>sourced components. >> >>It's OK for running projects which you can plan ahead, but what >>to say to customer with new design who wants 10K units tomorrow >>(what usually customers with new projects do)? Please wait 3 >>months to get the PICs or pay 20% more? > > > This is nothing new. At least today you normally have only one or > two critical parts. When we built everything out of 7400 series > logic we would often have to scurry around through 10 or more > distributors to find any parts whatsoever, and still have 6 months > or more delivery. The price was a large variable. Repeat the > process for each of a few dozen chips. > > Those weren't even sole-sourced. A few years ago nobody in their > right mind would design in a sole-sourced product without a very > good reason. > > The situation would flip from shortage to plenty and back every > few years. > > Nowadays the US distributors seem to be gone: Cramer, Arrow, > Schweber at least. Even Radio Shack was in the game.All good points. The distributor system is in a major upheaval right now. Has anyone noticed that sample requests from a couple of *major* manufacturers actually ship from Digikey? The few distributors that call on us are fighting tooth and nail to get the design win credits, something they don't get if we order our samples on-line. I think Microchip is trying to accomplish 2 things with this move 1) acually change the behavior of it's customers so that Microchip can better control it's inventory and cash flow. 2) cash in on the shortage market. Distibuters, particularly grey-market have done this for years. The grey-market people are totally market driven. Pay them 10%-40% premium in good times, get a 20% discount in bad times. So Microchip asks, "why can't I get a piece of that action?"
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
I received a similar letter from Microship. Thus anyone know what the real reason is behind this ? Production picking up ? New comsumer products in a hype ? Or have the semiconductor comapanies just been under investing in production. Stijn> > The moral is allways keep a stock of your critical single sourced components. > > Its not just Microchip. Arrow UK have been advising customers to expect > delivery issues with many of the major semiconductor manufacturers. > Many are described as 'On Formal Allocation' for the next quarter, and > there are 10-15% price increases for Flash and SRAM. > > Martin
Reply by ●January 22, 20042004-01-22
On 22 Jan 2004 09:49:18 -0800, the renowned jonsquire2000@hotmail.com (Jon S.) wrote:>I received a similar letter from Microship. > >Thus anyone know what the real reason is behind this ? Production >picking up ? New comsumer products in a hype ? Or have the >semiconductor comapanies just been under investing in production.Microchip recently (well, mid-2002) bought a huge mothballed semi plant, in Gresham WA, from Fujitsu for pennies on the dollar. It should be coming on line sometime around now- wonder how that's going? Best regards, Spehro Pefhany -- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
Reply by ●January 23, 20042004-01-23
This often happens in this industry, typically there is an unforeseen across the board demand for certain product types, or, say Westinghouse has just completed trials of a new PIc based washing machine controller, and placed an order for 2million. The really big players (millions per annum) don't seem to get hurt, nor do the minnows (less than 5k parts pa) but the guys in the middle who typically are too big to want to hold stock, but not big enough to make the supplier want to piss off a megabucks customer, are the ones who seem to cop it on the chin. Al Tsvetan Usunov wrote:>>If Microchip are forseeing problems, you can bet every other micro maker will be having the same, if >>not worse problems - at least Microchip are trying to pre-empt problems. >> >>Seems Atmel haven't learnt from their disastrous problems of a few years ago - a customer of mine >>has recently been quoted 16 weeks on an Atmel part..! > > > OK, but I don't get the background for this situation. > Perhaphs Microchip got more business than they can handle? > > Best regards > Tsvetan > --- > PCB prototypes for $26 at http://run.to/pcb (http://www.olimex.com/pcb) > Development boards for ARM, AVR, PIC, and MSP430 (http://www.olimex.com/dev)-- Please remove capitalised letters to reply My apologies for the inconvenience Blame it on the morons that spam the net
