November
Yes, Chip Shortages are Real, They’re Still Going On, and They’re Still Affecting Our Business
Remember all the headlines about the “chip shortage”? Remember all the mostly-completed cars and trucks piling up near manufacturing facilities?
It’s still going on, and it’s still affecting Alan-1.
Would you believe that the power transistors we use in our Transistor Upgrade Kits are currently unavailable, and will be unavailable for months? (Fortunately we have good inventory of the Wells 6100 version, but the upcoming GO8-003 TUK is being impacted.) Would you believe that my last two hardware designs have been primarily determined by what microcontrollers are available anywhere in the world at any price?
I’m currently working on sourcing alternatives for the TUK, and I believe I’ve found a few. (Please don’t point me to sketchy Asian suppliers, as many of those chips are counterfeit. It’s easy to put a cheap 30W transistor in a TO-264 case and label it with an OnSemi part number. It’ll test good on the bench, but it’ll blow up in your monitor.)
To be clear, I’m not complaining, and no Alan-1 products currently for sale are being affected. Addressing these shortages, before they stop us from shipping our replacement parts to you, is part of my job. But we’re not out of the woods yet…and no one should be surprised when they find that something they want is unavailable this Christmas, because one of the semiconductors in it still has a 40-week lead time and it can’t be redesigned around in time.
At least we can get graphics cards again, now that they can no longer be used to mine Ethereum.