Migrate or die. No raw material to manufacture - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: luiHS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2021, 06:05:10 am
content: The situation continues from bad to worse. The Kinetis MK66 microcontroller that I use in most of my designs out of stock from all vendors. The STM32H747 or 757 (BGA) that I was going to use in other designs also sold out at all suppliers.I do not see that this situation will be resolved soon, I am running out of raw materials to manufacture or make new designs.I only have one alternative left, to buy the entire stock of the RT1064 for new designs and migrate the ones I have with the MK66 to the RT1064. This way I could ensure that I have raw material to be able to work for a while, at least for the next few months.Are you not finding yourself in a similar situation ?, There are no microcontrollers for your designs and you have to make a decision, migrate and invest money buying new microcontrollers or you can no longer work and your business dies.This is already desperate and it is not known how long it will last and if it will even be worse. Waiting longer without doing anything may mean there is no longer any alternative. You risk, spend money and migrate the designs or you can be left with nothing.With other components, something similar has already happened to me, specifically with TFT screens, I bought them at 42 dollars, and for having waited so long now I have to pay them at 80 dollars and in other providers already at 95 dollars.

author: martinribelotta
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2021, 11:17:00 pm
content: I have suffered from the same in my designs several times... My opinion, design in modular way, not only the software, but also the hardware.By example, stm32h7 have too many parts in stock:https://www.digikey.com/short/7t3r80r5The imxrt1064 (or 1062 with ext-flash) suffer for shortage even more than stm32h7 series:https://www.digikey.com/short/0h8b0jjmDisclaim: Yeap! Digikey is not the best provider in this word but is a reference provider that guarantees a minimum of consecution (if digikey have it, is very probable than others have it)An other referential provider is LCSC but them suffer the shortage much more than others in MCU market (at least in my interest market jejejeje)https://lcsc.com/products/ST-Microelectronics_474.html?q=stm32h7BTW, LCSC has a preorder option that digikey doesn't.In other hand, what is your requeriments of MCU? Maybe some peoples here can suggest alternatives to your design ;-)

author: luiHS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 02:35:26 am
content: Quote from: martinribelotta on April 24, 2021, 11:17:00 pmI usually buy at Mouser for prototypes, and in quantity I already buy from the Chinese except for cheap components (resistors, capacitors, diodes).I have several very good Chinese suppliers, they always have anything cheaper than other Chinese. LCSC I think they are those of JLCPCB or some relationship they have, they will not be cheaper than my Chinese supplier.As for my requirements to replace MCU, now I have almost everything designed with Kinetis MK66, so I thought about migrating to NXP RT1024 or RT1064 and in the process I improve a lot in performance for future designs. In any case it has to be an ARM microcontroller and if it can be from NXP, better, so I can continue working with MCUXpresso.I've been looking at some ST, but the STM32H7 I don't think they improve the NXP RT series and that would also imply having to use STM32CubeIde with which I have much less experience than with MCUXpresso.I had planned several designs with STM32H747, but it is out of stock, then look at the H757 that was in stock but after a few days also sold out. They only have LQFP208 version on Digikey, but I prefer BGA. I am not aware of any other ARM that supports hardware JPEG decoding and MIPI DSI output. The alternative is to use a Raspberry, I am thinking of trying the Raspberry Pi 4 Compute, I quite like the design, except for those connectors that have complicated my PCB.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 06:18:03 am
content: Quote from: luiHS on April 27, 2021, 02:35:26 amArrow.com have 7,047 units STM32H723VGT6 at $10.331 USD per lot of 10MCU 32-bit ARM Cortex M7 RISC 1MB Flash 1.8V/2.5V/3.3V 100-Pin LQFP Trayhttps://static6.arrow.com/aropdfconversion/c22cad38841cf828fa7684998702544f992d2f4/en.dm00701028.pdf

author: luiHS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 07:22:15 am
content: Quote from: techman-001 on April 27, 2021, 06:18:03 amNot useful to me, I need a hardware JPEG decoder and a MIPI DSI video output. I've already searched a lot and only found the H747 and H757 with both features.And for other designs I need BGA with as many ports as a LQFP144 at least. Also I prefer to work with NXP, and the H747 H757 because no other manufacturer does the same.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2021, 08:20:15 am
content: I have multiple projects on hold now due to the chip shortage. Currently the only projects that can have any kind of progress are retrocomputing projects using mostly NOS chips and things that uses chips I otherwise rarely uses. Even those projects still uses STM32F042F4P6/STM32F070F6P6 for USB interface which I will start to run thin soon.