MC9S08 silicon shortage!

[irob]

Has anyone else been alerted to this? My vendor (Future) told me to expect half a year lead times on all S family parts because of a fab problem. Not sure what the exact issue was, but it sounded like a demand problem (better than yield I guess).

Anyone else hear this?

[jtjans]

I was able to get a small order off the shelf for prototyping the 9S08QG8 last month, but only in the QFN16 package.  Found no stock in any other pkg.

[kbu]

Dear Freescale :

I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how best to deal with your supply chain!!
I am a brand new product company looking to get a few products out into the market and I am just not able to make any commitments to my customers because I'm just not sure when I can get the chips.

I understand that part of the process of gaining 'experience' in the hardware market is to probably figure out this problem and work around it. But here's my position, things like zigbee radios and simple 8bit micro's are so simple to use these days that it is infact becoming easier for companies who aren't already in the traditional hardware business to actually think about it.
But at the end of the day if the actual parts (chips etc) are not available when you need it, it becomes really difficult to do business.

Case in point, I've been looking for one of your zigbee chips for several months now, I was told the release date was december, but nothing happened, then I was told its pushed back to March and I haven't heard of anything yet. I made a bet on this particular part and now it seems like I'm going to repent picking your solution. I know many folks on this group will probably say mitigate your risks by having backup designs. Well therein lies the problem, small new hardware company == small budgets == few design iterations (at least for a year or so).

Also many times there isn't any clarity in the data I receive from your sales reps in the channels or sometimes it just takes too long. Don't get me wrong, they do try their best, but I think they themselves don't get accurate information from freescale. But I'm only hypothesizing about this, I don't know this for a fact.

In these days of near disposable electronics and ultra short product lifetimes, I'm sure you'll can appreciate that the ability to 'get to market quickly' can make or break a small company. And without the foresight of availability of raw materials, making decisions are incredibly difficult, afterall committing to volume purchases, certification, planning for assembly/testing etc are BIG deals.

But then you'll know all this from Supply chain 101!

Sorry to badger you'll like this but I'm just really frustrated right now and I needed to vent.

But on a constructive note, I would love to hear your and the forum's position/strategies/advise on how to deal with supply chain issues.

To the folks in the forum: how long are your typical development cycles? (i.e. design to packaged product on the shelf)

Thanks,

[kevin]

I am very careful when selecting new components particularily with new suppliers/manufacturers - even with large semiconductor companies like Freescale, ST, IRF,etc...

Do you have a good working relationship with any distributors?  This is key, they can get answers from manufacturers like Freescale much sooner than we individual engineers can.  You can also get access to information not available to the public under NDAs.

All that said, we have some small volume products with Freescale processors (HC08 and HC12).  We have always managed to get parts but we also select  common (and hopefully more available) processor variants.  By the way, I'm getting warnings from every distributor that lead times are going up at every manufacturer, not just at Freescale.

Our development cycles are around 6 months to small run prototypes and full production within about a year (R&D department with 3 engineers/2 techs) 

[rocco]

Hi, kbu:

Like Kevin said, stick to mainstream parts. One way to know if a part is mainstream is to check if places like Mouser or Digi-Key carry it, and whether they have stock (but don't necessarily buy there). Availability is my most important selection criteria. I've lost too much blood on the "bleeding-edge". The most powerful chip is worthless if you can't get it.

I was seriously burned with the HC08XL36, and now have 3000 of them sitting on the shelf, collecting dust. I was burned some by the DSP56002. So even if you are careful, expect to be burned.

[kbu]

Freescale... please feel free to respond to this thread. (are you reading this at all?)

How do I get in touch with senior folks at freescale, I am a REALLY upset customer!!!

[peg]

Hi all,

Just received some sample JB16 yesterday 3 days from order, but the DIP QG8's I ordered at the same time are quoted for 5 June 2006.

Thats 12 weeks quoted, ?? weeks actual.

I am only looking into a possible beef-up of a current QY4 design so I am not too worried, but 12 weeks is longer than the entire design cycle for a lot of these sized projects.

Peg

[peg]

Hi all,

My sample QG8's turned up today - 18 Apr 2006.

So it seems no one knows what is going on.

Ordered: 13th of March

Quoted delivery: 5th June

Actual Delivery: 18th of April

Maybe they found some down the back of the cupboard?

BR Peg

[Alban]

Hi Peg,

I had the same stuff with an emulation board for FSICE...
Was ordered some time ago and kept being pushed, probably because of lead free qualification, still I got it finally !

Cheers,

Alban.

[irob]

I just spoke with my local distributor/FAE and he informed me that it's due to Freescale's fabricator TSMC that had some air filtration problems which resulted in the long lead times we're all seeing now.

And it's not only Freescale, but other vendors that use TSMC as well.

[irob]

Just got this letter from my vendor...

Subject: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Production Issue

Dear Customer:

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is a foundry partner of Freescale Semiconductor. TSMC experienced production problems in one of their wafer fabrication facilities that produced material that was out of specification. The out of specification material was contained and a full assessment of impact to the supply chain is underway.

The technology impacted is primarily 0.18, 0.25 and 0.35 micron product used in Freescale HC08, HC12 and S12 product families.

A cross-functional team has been working aggressively to identify the impact to the Freescale supply chain. This team is in the process of making priority wafer restarts and managing expedites to minimize impact to our supply chain and customer deliveries.

Based on the information available at this time, there is a potential impact from this event on your scheduled deliveries. Your Freescale customer supply analyst, or sales representative, will contact you to assess impact relative to your specific product.

We acknowledge the concern and inconvenience this incident may cause. We respectfully ask for your understanding and support as we work through the recovery process.

Curious that in the products listed, HCS908 isn't included. Or is that actually part of the HC08 family? I didn't think it was.

[kbu]

Excellent find irob... (BTW who is your distributor, I'm surprised how my fae doesn't quite know about this yet)

it is amazing how freescale can't be bothered announcing this publicly!!! and not even bother to respond to customers on forums hosted on their own servers!!

I'm new to this industry so I'd love to hear if this is normal? if not how can you'll tolerate this.

[irob]

My vendor is Future Electronics. To be honest, I'm not surprised about Freescale being relatively silent in the forums. Keep in mind that these forums are brand new here. There's probably only a few IT people in charge of it right now. I suspect that in the coming months more sales/engineering people will begin to either read them or be assigned to them.

[Alban]

iRob,

The letter does include a contradiction as HC08 are 0.5um and not 0.25um. You are right, it should probably read HCS08.

All,

We clearly had a reply from FSL that they do NOT want to communicate on this matter on the Forum. This came from the "not very useful" post saying to contact your sales representative.

IMHO, an order is a contract between two people and is not the Community biz.
I strongly believe it is right that it should be solved case by case.

And I'm also persuaded that nobody would be happy if each one of the late order was posted on here by FSL with the matching company name.... Or would you ?

If you want to have an answer for your particular order, please do see with your usual contact and hassle him until you have a satisfactory answer. After all, it's his job.

Nevertheless, I do thank every contribution on here and encourage any similar information to be shared with the Community !!!

Cheers,

Alban.

[tonyp]

We haven't been specifically alerted to any problems but we do experience serious delays, with the 9S08QG8.  We've been told our order should arrive within two weeks, over and over again, as each deadline passes, and still no goods!  Next deadline is mid March, we'll see how that goes.

Maybe they announce new parts way too early to help them estimate production runs based on pre-production demand.  Feels like we're the guinea pigs in a bizarre marketing experiment!