Do you remember the global chip shortage? Somehow it seems so long ago, but it’s not even really been three years yet. Somehow, I had entirely forgotten about it, until two random mentions about it popped up in short succession, and brought it all flooding back like a repressed bad dream.
Playing the role of the ghost-of-chip-shortage-past was a module for a pair of FPV goggles. There are three versions of the firmware available for download at the manufacturer’s website, and I had to figure out which I needed. I knew it wasn’t V1, because that was the buggy receiver PCB that I had just ordered the replacement for. So it was V2 or V3, but which?
Digging into it, V2 was the version that fixed the bug, and V3 was the redesign around a different microcontroller chip, because they couldn’t get the V2 one during the chip shortage.
I saw visions of desperate hackers learning new toolchains, searching for alternative parts, finding that they could get that one chip, but that there were only 20 of them left and they were selling for $30 instead of $1.30. I know a lot of you out there were designing through these tough couple years, and you’ve all probably got war stories.
And yet here we are, definitively post-chip-shortage. How can you be sure? A $30 vape pen includes a processor that we would have killed for just three years ago. The vape includes a touchscreen, just because. And it even has a Bluetooth LE chip that it’s not even using. My guess is that the hardware designers just put it in there hoping that the firmware team would get around to using it for something.
This vape has 16 MB of external SPI Flash! During the chip shortage, we couldn’t even get 4 MB SPI flash.
It’s nice to be on the other side of the chip shortage. Just order whatever parts you want and you get them, but don’t take for granted how luxurious that feels. Breathe easy, and design confidently. You can finally use that last genuine STM32F103 blue pill board without fear of it being the last one on earth.
(Featured image is not an actual photo of the author, although he does sometimes have that energy.)
I remember the shortage, because today i found the reason, 25+ raspi’s in a box at my new work, so thats where the world wide stock went!
One silver lining to that chip shortage is it opened me up to the wacky and wonderful world of cheap Chinese 8051-clone microcontrollers, where 5+ companies make near-identical pin-compatible general purpose micros that all have many sourcing options… My favorite “brand” of these was HolyChip.
In 2021 my company ordered 150 rather expensive ATSAMC21-XPRO boards while our 3-man strong dev team needed maybe 10 of them. Inventory management there was a joke so over time I appropriated 70 of those boards, sold them on Allegro and bought myself a fancy new MTB.
You stole them.
(1) is Russia still scrounging washing machines for chips for their T-80’s and T-90’s? (I understand neither side mostly doesn’t eveb bother to field MBTs anymore because you don’t need a $20,000 javelin, a $2000 drone is just as good), (2) I wouldn’t whistle past the graveyard just yet — the decade ain’t — between Xi and DJT and all the drama around companies like TSMC, Intel and Nvidia (and OpenAI) and all that I fully expect another breakdown in supply.
So, Russia’s BMPT “terminator” tanks are basically a bunch of close support weaponry bolted onto T-72 and T-14 frames.
They were supposed to be “indestructible” urban support tanks but apparently are (1) very expensive, and (2) not very good at their missions.
The use of washing machine chips was referenced a few times — I always assumed it meant they needed OTS MCU’s.
I don’t like war porn so I’m not linking to videos of them being destroyed by low cost drones but you can find a number if you look. By looking at older articles it seems like the Russians fielded about 10 of the BMPTs and lost at least 3 or 4 to FPV drones. Looks like maybe one more within the last week or two – that one was supposedly on a T-90 frame, but I’m not sure if that’s actually one of the BMPT terminators or if the Ukrainians are just calling it that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/08/13/a-swarm-of-tiny-ukrainian-drones-just-knocked-out-one-of-russias-nine-remaining-terminator-vehicles/
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-says-russia-using-chips-from-dishwashers-in-tanks-sanctions-2022-5
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-tank-imr-3m-2133513
No nostalgia for the 2018 MLCC shortage?
cracks and shorts
It’s not a shortage per se, but my low sodium diet is very much short on chips
So, what was the FINAL conclusion, will US set up and run its own chip factories or not?
I bet it was “let’s wait and see” and here we are again, setting up ourselves just for such thing once more to happen, because China eventually will try to take back Taipei/Taiwan with all the chip making factories and engineers included. They’ll just wait for the Taco Wind to pass over and make it happen, because they have patience.
I still do not understand what stops the US monsters (Intel, etc) from building their own US factories on scale comparable to Taiwan. The suppliers (say, ASML) are mostly european, so why don’t we return the 1980s?