Within one month my TTC5200 order increase of $22 for same quantity. Manufacturers have to pay to keep continuity of production. But for hobby, money is important !
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WHATdid you buy?
Old/new price?
Cost is even more important for commercial manufacturing, a hobbyist can pay a little more and survive, a manufacturer sinks.
Old/new price?
Cost is even more important for commercial manufacturing, a hobbyist can pay a little more and survive, a manufacturer sinks.
Hello JM,
transistors TTC5200, 151€ - 169€.
Interesting point of view : do manufacturers not pass on these costs to buyers ?
As hobbyist, it's a gamble : wait to buy until price decrease or buy now as tomorow prices will increase...
Buy or not buy : that is the question ;-)
transistors TTC5200, 151€ - 169€.
Interesting point of view : do manufacturers not pass on these costs to buyers ?
As hobbyist, it's a gamble : wait to buy until price decrease or buy now as tomorow prices will increase...
Buy or not buy : that is the question ;-)
there is chip manufacturing shortage. Therefore prices goes up. Be thankful your not buying lumber in North America. Lumber is 4x from a couple of years ago. I bought 4 pieces of wood to repair a fence $78 should have cost no more than $20.
There is a lot of covid pricing going on. 2 years ago one neighbour had a large tree cut down $300. This spring same tree cutter, same sized tree $600. Reason given was covid. Tree cutters and all trades are in high demand.
There is a lot of covid pricing going on. 2 years ago one neighbour had a large tree cut down $300. This spring same tree cutter, same sized tree $600. Reason given was covid. Tree cutters and all trades are in high demand.
It’s called inflation, price gouging or just plain old capitalism depending on who you ask. Bottom line is businesses of every size are now going to try and make up for the lack of gross profit over the last 20 months on the backs of whoever needs/wants or is willing to pay to keep the profit train rolling. Many economists think the 2008 bailout of the us economy was the worst possible answer and would have led to this with or without COVID. It is all made up, don’t pay let them go out of business...
Gibraltar blocus was a short problem, so returning to previous state seems coherent. But increasing salary may play a permanent role on consumer prices ?
We use to buy lots of transistors for pairing purpose : should we bet for prices decrease or buy today...
We use to buy lots of transistors for pairing purpose : should we bet for prices decrease or buy today...
Hi Altec, just found them at Farnell (France), which I think is a "serious" shop, I see 169€ buys 100 of them, not bad.
22€ price hike would mean 13% price increase, significant but not a deal breaker I guess.
And if it jumped from 151 to 169, even less, some 11.2% , same considerations.
I would buy them now, not sure prices will come down until depressive Covid economy recovers. Won´t hold my breath on that.
FWIW and as a practical example, here in Argentina our President announced hours ago that from Saturday 0:00 hours and for 9 days we are back to Phase 1/Red Alert, STRICT Lockdown:
Argentina announces '''circuit-breaker''' lockdown as pandemic rages | Reuters
* full curfew between 6PM and 6AM . No exceptions.
* ALL shops - Schools - Churches - *everything* closed except local (within, say, 300-500 meters tops) Food shops - Pharmacists - Hardware stores and that only selling through "windows", no customers allowed inside.
* beyond "local to your home" area, only specially authorized "Essential Workers".
There is NO Economy which can survive that and the lightest effect is price increases + supply shortages.
Again, if you need them, secure your purchase.
* as of "passing increased costs to Customers", easier said than done.
No big deal if you have a niche product with assured sales, but if competing with others, you easily price yourself out of the market.
Customers "vote with their wallets" 😎
IXYS IXTP15N50L2 late last year, $6.50 from Digikey. Same part yesterday, $7.86.
IXYS IXTP3N100D2 late last year, $2.77 from Digikey. Same part yesterday, $3.01.
MIMXRT1062DVJ6A an Arm core M7 CPU chip from NXP, was about $13 last year. It is now "discontinued." The replacement MIMXRT1062DVJ6B is priced at $14.84, but unavailable at any price, anywhere right now. Ditto any high performance small CPU.
IXYS IXTP3N100D2 late last year, $2.77 from Digikey. Same part yesterday, $3.01.
MIMXRT1062DVJ6A an Arm core M7 CPU chip from NXP, was about $13 last year. It is now "discontinued." The replacement MIMXRT1062DVJ6B is priced at $14.84, but unavailable at any price, anywhere right now. Ditto any high performance small CPU.
This is actually less than the price-jack I see on groceries since early 2020. And FAR less than the panic market in lumber.
The problem with the panic markets is the prices don’t always come back down. It gets used as an excuse to raise them permanently, even after conditions improve. At least all of my subwoofer cabinets have been built. There will be no more, period.
I expect transistor prices to continue to get worse and worse because it is also driven by other factors - like phasing out of discrete (especially thru hole) components in general.
I expect transistor prices to continue to get worse and worse because it is also driven by other factors - like phasing out of discrete (especially thru hole) components in general.
Don't forget that there are tariffs on some (not all) semi's.
I find it amusing to see the auto companies whining about the chip shortage. It's mostly their own fault.
I find it amusing to see the auto companies whining about the chip shortage. It's mostly their own fault.
vehicules manufacturers complain about shortage but it's the result of their choice of just in time process !
@wg_ski : I suspect also some artificials raisons to keep high prices but I also hope in autoregulation between demand and supply.
@wg_ski : I suspect also some artificials raisons to keep high prices but I also hope in autoregulation between demand and supply.
Sad news : bars reopen this week here, so cheers! ; to your health
Electronics pricing has been very stable for a few decades, driven by the shift to Asian manufacturing. A colour TV has been around UKP300 since they first came out 50 years ago. Finally component prices are breaking away, I expect a doubling in the next year or so. Pain for the end buyer on a flat income.
Ever toured a wafer fab facility and followed the process from the growing of the silicon ingot to finished IC die? I have and it's a long process. Depending on the complexity of the chip, and the processes involved, standard fab time for say a mid sized CPU chip is 3 to 4 MONTHS. In some cases the job may be split across more than one fab, and both may be in different countries.
Then your die get queued up in the line at the packaging house. Each BGA design gets it's own custom designed package (done before getting in line) but packaging for a 100 pin BGA took us about 2 to 3 weeks at AMKOR in Korea.
In some situations cubic money can buy you a better spot in the line at one or more of the many processing and packaging bottlenecks along the process. In today's "everyone's in the same boat" environment only the real big orders (chips for a million phones a month job) can get this. A little "grease" can be applied to customs processing too, to shave a few days.
For the last few years of my engineering career I worked in an IC design group. Our chips were fabbed at an IBM facility in New York, which has since been sold or closed. The standard turn time from "tape out" (sending them the data files) to finished die was about 4 months. Best case "preferred processing" was still over three months. From there the die flew to Korea, then to us in Florida. Time, about three more weeks.
So the chips you may get today, were started about 6 months ago. This was at a time when orders were down and fabs were running at reduced capacity due to Covid.
We seem to go through these parts shortage cycles every few years. It's usually due to slow downs in the global economy. The hardest to get parts are the ones being used by the millions, and other often unrelated parts made in the same fab.
In the mid 2000's it was tiny LDO's and RF switches, due to the cell phone market boom. Today it's mid to high end CPU's and GPU's. Covid + unstable economies + crypto mining can be blamed for most of this one.
Exactly. And also LDOs and switchers are short in supply.
In addition to the Covid issues, the AKM and Renesas fires just add to the issues - Renesas with auto devices, AKM for GNSS products. Oh, and audio...
I'm told that TSMC are fully booked out for 12 months.
In addition to the Covid issues, the AKM and Renesas fires just add to the issues - Renesas with auto devices, AKM for GNSS products. Oh, and audio...
I'm told that TSMC are fully booked out for 12 months.
There’s a global semi shortage right now. It’s called ‘allocation’ in the industry.
I was a product line manager and loved allocation because I could ram prices up for a few quarters and watch customers who had screwed me and not bat an eyelid squirm.
It will soon be over and normalcy will return and prices should moderate down.
It’s semiconductors folks. Enjoy the ride.
I was a product line manager and loved allocation because I could ram prices up for a few quarters and watch customers who had screwed me and not bat an eyelid squirm.
It will soon be over and normalcy will return and prices should moderate down.
It’s semiconductors folks. Enjoy the ride.
Does anybody remember the Coleco Adam?
I worked at a company that supplied semiconductors to Coleco when there was a supply crunch and everybody was on allocation. Coleco responded by ordering a year's worth of production from five different suppliers, taking delivery from whoever shipped first, and then cancelling their order (or worse, returning shipped parts), for the other four. Ppisssing us off and three other companies too.
Well, here comes the Adam, aimed at a Christmas launch. Coleco orders from us and we say, "sorry, we're on allocation, all of our production allocated to IBM. We sure wish you hadn't cancelled your order last year, that put you at the bottom of our priority list. Maybe next time."
As Wikipedia delicately explains, Adam was not as successful as Coleco would have liked.
I worked at a company that supplied semiconductors to Coleco when there was a supply crunch and everybody was on allocation. Coleco responded by ordering a year's worth of production from five different suppliers, taking delivery from whoever shipped first, and then cancelling their order (or worse, returning shipped parts), for the other four. Ppisssing us off and three other companies too.
Well, here comes the Adam, aimed at a Christmas launch. Coleco orders from us and we say, "sorry, we're on allocation, all of our production allocated to IBM. We sure wish you hadn't cancelled your order last year, that put you at the bottom of our priority list. Maybe next time."
As Wikipedia delicately explains, Adam was not as successful as Coleco would have liked.
That’s similar to the experience I had. The customers would order from multiple vendors (not telling any of them of course), and then when we were ready to ship, set us off against each other in a bidding war.
I worked supplying semis into automotive tier 1 for 5 yrs and generally speaking they were exceedingly demanding in terms of quality, shipping performance etc but I’d say they were an honorable bunch of customers. Drive a hard bargain, but at least you could work with them. Mobile a bit worse but Computing and Consumer was always a free for all.
I worked supplying semis into automotive tier 1 for 5 yrs and generally speaking they were exceedingly demanding in terms of quality, shipping performance etc but I’d say they were an honorable bunch of customers. Drive a hard bargain, but at least you could work with them. Mobile a bit worse but Computing and Consumer was always a free for all.
Motorola created the MC6802 8 bit CPU in the late 70's. It found its way under the hood of several late 70's and early to mid 80's cars. The order quantities from the car manufacturers changed drastically from month to month so somewhere in the early 80's Motorola licensed the design, and furnished masks and all materials necessary for General Motors to make their own MC6802's. They were Delco branded, house numbered parts intended for use in GM engine controllers only.
In polar opposition to that scenario, the entire ECU module in all of the Chrysler turbocharged 4 cylinder cars of the mid 80's was manufactured by Motorola.
Why do you say it’s their own fault? In auto, you pretty much know the production run rate and it’s stable for the life of the model - stable being +-15% per month or there about. Easy to plan buffer ( for us usually 4 weeks or so, but it would go up to 6-8 if we thought things were getting tight). The design-in cycle for auto semi’s is typically 18-24 months and both sides commit with a lot of quals work etc in the process. It’s very difficult for them to pull out half way through a DI cycle. There’s usually at least 2 suppliers, but often 3 for generics.