The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

Post by CRConrad » Mon, May 10, 2021, 8:24 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #564

salawat wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't find small car footprint trucks anymore because of CAFE standards. The small size pickup is infeasible to get to happen while still getting "truck" performamce characteristics at that size. At least as far as I understand, that and safety requirements are the main driver of truck size increases over time.

To honest, when I think of a small truck I just want something with about the power of a sedan or estate car but with a flat bed instead of more seats. I get why people like big trucks, but I think there's a lot of people who want storage space without necessarily needing massive towing power.

Post by CRConrad » Mon, May 10, 2021, 8:42 AM UTC

rajacombinator wrote: post #627

baybal2 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industry has largely forgotten how to make stuff without chips. That's why I am telling people that a global chip shortage, if something happens to Taiwan, would bring the industry not back into fifties, but into the iron age. The further the tech ladder you go, the harder you fall if somebody takes out your engineering bay.

What could happen to Taiwan? I’m interested.

Post by azeirah » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

rhodozelia wrote: post #173

parsimo2010 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But lifetime support doesn’t help if the parts for your machine aren’t available anymore. If your 20 year old machine breaks and there aren’t parts available to fix it, you might get offered an equivalent replacement. If your old chip masks are incompatible with the replacement machine, you’re not immediately able to make what you need. So for some companies, having lifetime support might not help with the manufactur…

The parts were made by humans once, they can be made by humans again. The only question is is it worth it

Post by varjag » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

neltnerb wrote: post #193

smiley1437 wrote: post #58

Interestingly, there is an embedded video in that article that explains the issue specific to the automotive shortage - it's because the automotive industry cancelled a lot of chip orders in anticipation of low vehicle demand and that caused chip makers to reduce their production for the kinds of chips that go into cars, and now it takes time to ramp back up: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/02/how-the-global-compu…

I get that this is a potential big problem, but I had to stop reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to respin a new board on a chip being out of stock due to this. I'm sorry, but if you aren't buying enough chips to build all the boards you want to build of a revision, this is just what happens, chip shortage or no. Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. Blaming a black swan…

Post by yetihehe » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:54 AM UTC

neilv wrote: post #632

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embedded development is more than just wrangling C, that would be like saying backend dev is wrangling EC2 instances ;). It's knowing how low level hardware operates and knowing how to dig yourself out of the various gotchas like for example figuring out that a last minute replacement of the crystal oscillator by the HW team with a cheaper one is now screwing up your boot process or that the reason your products are…

I hope an EE with a logic analyzer will help troubleshoot the clock problem, since I don't think the prevailing software methodology will work (i.e., ask on Stackoverflow, then add three dozen more Node.js packages to the firmware footprint). :)