Shortage in Atmel Microcontrollers expected?

Confirm ? No. There is a probability though. These backorder delays happen and tend to be unfortunate. Better have some on stock.

Rene

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a shortage. This is what pushed me away from Atmel micro's in their early days.

IMHO, you'll hardly find superior chips today without taking this risk.

After the mobile phone boom, we felt quite save. During the last years the AVRs were available from stock in quantities of some hundreds.

Harald

I can confirm that it's been a bad quarter for our major distributer. Does that help?

"Harald Kipp" skrev i meddelandet news:bkoukr$s1s$00$ snipped-for-privacy@news.t-online.com...

I am told that there are lead-time problems with a few AVR chips due to unexpected large orders cleaning out inventory. Since it takes 3-4 months to produce parts and semiconductor companies does not like stock more than their customers, this causes leadtimes to approach the production time of devices which is 12-16 weeks. The fact that the AVR production is moving to a new fab may or may not be relevant.

God loves the companies which provide forecast and orders 16 weeks in advance.

This is the deranged view of semiconductor companies. Somehow they have managed to supply an alternative reality where we should be responsible for stocking their product just in case we need it. So we pay their margin up front to sit on inventory we may need sometime. Whereas most other companies stock their product and ship to customers asap.

We would all love customers to place orders in advance, but we would go out of business if we required it. Just imagine if your local electrons supplier acted like a semiconductor company.....

Ralph

for

This isn't any different from dealing with McDonalds: if they happen to have the fries you ordered under the heat lamp, you get them quickly. Otherwise, you wait. The only difference is the lead time of the chips in question.

Kelly

wrote

have

Otherwise,

Not quite the same. With McDonalds I don't have to tell them 4 months in advance how hungry I will be for fear of starving to death otherwise.

Which of the AVR chips have seen the large ordders? Also, since you're here, which fab is the AVR production moving to?

Hul

Ulf Samuelsson wrote: : : "Harald Kipp" skrev i meddelandet : news:bkoukr$s1s$00$ snipped-for-privacy@news.t-online.com... :> Hi, :>

:> Our German distributor just called to inform me, that he :> expects long backorder delays in the next months. This may :> have two serious reasons, I can think of: :>

:> 1. His quasterly results are bad. :> 2. The economical upswing (is it real? :-)) may result :> in supply shortage, as he said. :>

:> Can anybody confirm reason 2? :>

:> Harald :>

:> -- :> For spam do not replace spamtrap with my name :>

: I am told that there are lead-time problems with a few AVR chips due to : unexpected large orders cleaning out inventory. : Since it takes 3-4 months to produce parts and semiconductor companies does : not like stock : more than their customers, this causes leadtimes to approach the production : time of devices : which is 12-16 weeks. The fact that the AVR production is moving to a new : fab may or may not be relevant. : : God loves the companies which provide forecast and orders 16 weeks in : advance. : : :

= 512B

the production

Any ONE of these 3 events is cause enough for supply line concern, from those experienced in life at the end of the pipe. Mention of ALL THREE is likely to cause sleepless nights....

-jg

Which is easy for larger companies doing business as usual, but difficult for small companies with a rapidly growing (or decreasing) business.

After reading all the responses and reconsidering the situation, I recognized, that gambling would be the most hazardous attitude. We will try to lower the risk by taking the middle course and ordering a few more than usual.

Thanks to all posters,

Harald

You're overstretching the analogy, mixing time scales wildly. The key figure is the difference between production time and consumption time (as in: the time between you ordering your fries and the moment you would drop dead of starvation if you haven't gotten any until then). With McD, realistic worst-case production time is sevaral orders of magnitude shorter than consumption time, so it's really no problem if they don't have any readily fried ones in stock the moment you walk in. You wouldn't starve for at least a week, but it takes a maximum of 10 minutes to make fresh fries for you.

As to microcontrollers, production takes about long as your starvation interval; quite possibly longer. And that means you either pay for stock production and storage, or you'll starve. It's as simple as that.

It's really a rather moot point whether storage of those chips made long before you let anybody know you wanted them, but ending up being sold to you, happens at the part maker, at your distributor, or even on your own premises. If you refuse to pre-order and store the parts yourself, you'll either end up paying someone else for doing it for you, or you won't get the chips.

To get back to the McD analog: your complaint would be more like some person who hasn't eaten anything for a couple of days, although he lives next to the McD and has the money to pay, then crawls in 2 minutes before he would die of starvation and makes a fuss that they take 10 minutes to fry him a burger.

Production times are a largely immutable reality --- consumption time is something *you* can influence. You refuse to apply that influence entirely at your own risk.

We use two alternative distributors for Atmel chips and usually get what we order in 1-2 weeks. Never heard for upcoming supply shortage.

Best regards Tsvetan