Quote:
Originally Posted by chassis
Quote:
Originally Posted by soheil
I work in the automotive industry and literally every chip manufacturer and every possible chip you think of is impacted: PHY Ethernet chips, Bluetooth chips, WiFi chips, memories, low and high end microcontrollers and SoCs, FPGAs, … (@chris719 already mentioned most of these manufacturers: Infineon, Renesas, NXP (Freescale), STMicro, UMC, Global Foundries, TI, Xilinx, etc.)
What makes the situation even more complicated is that each car has 10s of different ECUs/devices that auto manufacturers get from various OEMs. And now depending on how those OEMs are managing their supply chains, in 1 car you might be short on 1 ECU, in another 2-3 ECUs, in another maybe more. For some common parts (e.g. memories) we do multi sourcing but for high tech ones (micro/SoC/Ethernet/WiFi/BT) that need specific SW/HW design you can't just simply switch to another chip! This makes it super complicated for car manufacturers to decide on cutting options/features vs. delaying the whole production schedule.
Another fun fact: depending on the contract terms, car manufacturers are on fining OEMs for not delivering ECUs, which then OEMs fine their suppliers, and then those suppliers fine their suppliers and so on… which of course is not going to help with ramping up production capacities. Some companies have realized this and stopped charging fines and are "eating up" the fines by the guy above which will obviously hurt them financially in the short term but they are betting on better suppliers relationships and faster recovery this way. The whole thing is super fun and amusing to watch  |
soheil Good info. Do all of the examples of ECU and device manufacturers you listed get their chips from two factories in Japan that suffered fire damage? |
I'm on the R&D side so don't know exactly which particular factories are affecting this shortage but I can confirm that Renesas microcontrollers are seeing a shortage. But from what I see it is more widespread so don't think it would be limited to particular incidents in 1 or 2 factories. We are now being asked by our supplier management and purchasing groups to reduce the R&D and test sample quantities for programs with SOPs in 2023 and 2024 which tells me that the situation is not gonna improve that fast.