Why Kinetis are out of stock in all suppliers ?

[luishs]

Hello.

What is happening with the Kinetis MK66 and MK64 microcontrollers, Why is there no stock in any supplier??

Until recently they could at least be obtained in Mouser, and sometimes in Farnell. But right now they are out of stock in ALL providers, they do not even have them in Mouser.

Does this mean that the Kinetis are going to stop being manufactured?  For me it is important because I have many designs with Kinetis MK64 and MK66, and I also have new developments designed with these microcontrollers. But if NXP is going to stop making the Kinetis, I need to know to start migrating my designs to other ARM micros (probably Atmel SAM) and not start new designs with Kinetis.

I find it very strange how difficult it is to obtain these microcontrollers, and that they are not even available in Mouser.

I would appreciate an official response from an official representative of NXP, I believe that engineers and developers deserve a clear answer in this regard.

[psubiaco]

I found that octopart.com is a good website to find electronic parts: it shows the stock and price from the major suppliers. http://octopart.com

The current stock situation is very very annoying: if NXP will continue with this policy (price and lead time increasing), maybe new microelectronic companies will be born !!
Regards. Paolo

[merigotbertrand]

I have been developping new boards for more than 20 years. The economy is cycling.

This is for me the third cycle.For kinetis and also ST, this a moment where the orders  are raising due to this positive market growing. Anyway in our jobs we have to anticipate this cycling (growing and decrease also)

We are all here as we develop with kinetis product.

I have known 2 broken development due to too long delay. It may arrive again but we have to anticipate it.

Anytime, I develop with an alternate family microcontroler. This is a bigger job but suprisingly, it speed up the first serial launch, it avoid broken developpment, it is easier for price negociation and finally it raised the electronic life time.

this is called W cycle developpment.

Bertrand.

[pcpro178]

Longer lead times across an industry is a sign of an improving economy.  (More purchase orders are being submitted.)  The factories will catch up. :smileywink:

[andreacanepa]

Jim Fell ha scritto:

Longer lead times across an industry is a sign of an improving economy.  (More purchase orders are being submitted.)  The factories will catch up.

We have been in this situation for more than six months, the factories had plenty of time to increase production and follow market demand.

Why i.MX does not have these lead time problems? Perhaps it has less Kinetis request? Or maybe they want to push customers to use i.MX to reduce the number of products to be built?

Andrea

[pcpro178]

I won't pretend to understand all the reasons a factory may wait to increase output, but I'm sure there are many business reasons for delaying commitment of additional resources to scale production, such as capital costs, commitments to their labor force, etc..  For a business to make money, it must mitigate risk (uncertainty) as much as possible.  So, once it's decided that an increase in purchase orders is not a temporary spike, but a new trend--time is required to see the trend and make a decision--an organization must then go through the steps of doing what's needed to increase their factory output.  Just keeping with my aforementioned examples, it takes time to order new equipment, which may have it's own lead times, and it takes time to hire new people, bring them on-board, and get them up to speed.

[nexcode]

Hi, I was intended to know what was happening with NXP too. And now I found that anothers have the same problem.
We use Freescale a long time and when our MC9S12NE64 (16 bits) was anounced that it were be discontinued. Freescale alerted us that we had to migrate. So Freescale Engineers suggested K64 family to substitute our NE64, and with a good price., (About 5 dollars), So we began to migrate ours products and now that we are at the begging of pre-productions, the lead time pass to 39 weeks and the prices went to 11 dolars.
So, what shall we do ? Close our company ?
Fortunately we found some K63, some K64 and some K66 on Asia and here in Brazil.
But.... and when we get January/2019 ? We will have more 39 weeks ? with the 11 dollars ?
It is preocupante.
Now I am studying Renesas Synergy, that have the about the same price, but more software included, better support and longevity. So I intend to have 2 line of suppliers and analyze the market. But in more that 15 years, it's the Freescale/NXP/Qualcomp changes that makes me more alerted.
Someone told me that it is the growth of IOT and the search for silicon in a new era !

Best Regards
Rodrigo F. Campello

[andreacanepa]

Now I am studying Renesas Synergy, that have the about the same price, but more software included, better support and longevity.

I took a look at Renesas Synergy, but at most they offer the M4 core!

For a new project it is perhaps better to aim at M7 (like STM32H7 or SAM-E70), do not you think?

Andrea

[nexcode]

Hi Andrea, I saw the STM32H7, but I think that it more than I need. The frequencys of 400 MHz a good but need more care for the hardware. Today I'm migrating from a NXP 16 bits to 32 bits, from 25 Mhz to 120 Mhz. It's good enough.
Synergy shows me a balance between, support, price, hardware and library. 
Best Regards.

[luishs]

I wait for i.MX RT1020, better and cheaper than STM32H7. And about Atmel SAM S7x, E7x, V7x, very poor documentation about DMA, I do not like Atmel Studio and only a few source code examples.

[andreacanepa]

Yes, it's true: STM32H7 is expensive, but has excellent peripherals in standard equipment.

As for i.MX RT1020, I was also very interested in the product, you can read this thread: LINK

Unfortunately, my initial enthusiasm was followed by the awareness that in the end the price would reach almost that of STM32H7. Furthermore, the i.MX RT1020 is very poor at the level of analog peripherals. You can comment in the thread I sent you if you want to complete the ideas.

The best would be MKV58, but as we all have written, we are talking about a microcontroller undergoing premature death.

Andrea.

[luishs]

Are you sure that MKV58 supports SDHC / SDIO for SD cards? I do not see it in the data sheet. Some time ago I was looking for a powerful Kinetis, faster than MK66 with SDIO and I did not find any, and the Cortex M7 are for motor control.

I do not need analog peripherals, SDIO and DMA are essential for me. Currently I work with MK66, but they are getting harder and harder to get, for example, the MK66 of 2 Megas is no longer in the Asian market, this time I had to buy the 1 Mega one, and the 2 Megas samples are not already available in the NXP website.

For me it is quite obvious, although they do not want to say it, NXP has stopped making the Kinetis. They do not seem to be manufactured anymore, only until stocks run out in the Chinese, and the small amount that can be achieved in some distributors (less and less).

I can migrate my applications to any ARM microcontroller, the only complex for me is the DMA, of which there is very little documentation, except in the STM32. About DMA, very poor or null documentacion for Atmel SAM, and for Kinetis only something because I use Teensy libraries.

The alternatives to Kinetis that I thought are these and I decided on the i.MX RT1020, but we still have to wait until June::

1.- STM32H7
2.- Atmel SAM S7x / V7x / E7x
3.- i.MX RT2010

I think that NXP has decided to stay with LPC and expand its range of i.MX microcontrollers, so null future for Kinetis. I hope I'm wrong and follow the Kinetis, but everything points to his disappearance.

[arimendes]

Luis,

   If you source for "MK64F" in the www.mouser.com you will see a large quantitie of Kinetis MK64Fxx on order with estimate ship date between July and Octuber 2018. I think NXP still manufacturing Kinetis, but the price is not competitive for new projects. 

    Ari.

[andreacanepa]

Ari, I fully share Luis's concerns.

For example on Mouser will be available n°360 MKV58F1M0 by the middle of June, and for us that we order 100 MCUs at a time may be sufficient.

But my concern (and that of Luis) is this: if someone before me orders those 360 MKV58 I will have to wait 39 weeks before I can get the delivery of my order. This is worrying. So even if there is the momentary availability of an MCU, it is said that it is a good choice to continue using it if the delivery times remain so long.

Andrea

[andreacanepa]

Are you sure that MKV58 supports SDHC / SDIO for SD cards? I do not see it in the data sheet.

No, MKV58 not have SD peripheral (in fact it is exactly what I wrote in the other thread). Instead i.MX RT1020 has the SD device.

If your application does not require analog devices, then your choice on i.MX RT1020 is centered (when it will be available). Also consider the cost of the external flash.

[luishs]

The situation remains the same in 2018, it has not changed at all.

This is already outrageous, it is shameful the attitude of NXP with the Kinetis microcontrollers.

I already started to migrate all my designs with Kinetis to STM32 (ST), and I will not start any new design with Kinetis.

If NXP has decided to stop manufacturing the Kinetis, at least they have the seriousness to say it clearly and do not deceive more people who are waiting for stock of the product, MK64, MK24, MK20, all sold out and with delivery date for December of 2018.

What is this, a joke, a mockery, a deception, an absolute lack of seriousness and professionalism ...?

[bobpaddock]

It is just history repeating itself.
The dreaded word 'Allocation' will appear soon.

Motorola/Freescale/NXP/Qualcom/whatever the name of the day may be/ tends to sell the product to Automotive and other Tier One customers.  They get them first and we get what is left, if anything.

In Early Days Motorola made a nice part for the time the 6805.
I designed them into a few products.

Went to order more and got obscene lead times in years.

I was told that Automotive bought them all for their engine controllers, to bad for you.

This is about the time General Instruments sold the PIC line to a new company called Microchip.

Microchip converted the abysmal PIC architecture meant  only for running a Washer/Dryer 'White Goods' (See the GI data sheet) to CMOS.  Microchip being new had no established market so it was easy to get PIC to replace the 6805.  So nearly everyone screwed by Motorola switched to the PICs that they could get, even tho in comparison they sucked.  Comes down to the 6805 screw job  by Motorola created Microchip's market and the rest is history...

Those that do not learn from history are relegated to repeat it.
Those that do learn from history must standby and watch helplessly as others repeat it.

[emmanuelsambuis]

Bob,

I cannot comment on what happened with the 6805 years ago.

The good news is that we have learned from our past mistakes and over 50% of our devices are shipped towards small-mid size customers. It is never enough when manufacturing is constrained as it is today, but we keep monotoring the situation on a daily basis and will keep serving our small-mid size customers.

The new product launches are also treated so that we have enough material for all our customers during their initial development cycle as well as production ramp.

Lastly you are going to see a significant increase of shipments in 1H18, based on the latest manufacturing projection that we have received in December.

Regards, Emmanuel

[zacharydickerso]

Is there someone at NXP we can talk to on the phone about this?

I am the chief engineer, and we are about to yank all kinetis from all products and re-design from scratch.  It is expensive, but we will lose even more money if we have to wait until October 2018, or not even resolved lead times by year end.  Anything over 8-12 weeks will never work for us.

[bobpaddock]

Where will you go, as I may want to follow?

However it is industry wide trend.

We are getting absurd lead time quotes for things like 1.2k resistors and 0.001 uF capacitors.

This is simply the normal cycle of this industry.

Struggle to get orders then everyone gets so many orders that they double and triple book because the parts are allocated.

Then when they get what they need and release those triple bookings there is again a glut on the market.

Different markets have a lead or lag time of months to years to the general industry trend, everyone gets hit at some point.

"Those that do not learn from history are relegated to repeat it.

Those that do learn from history are relegated to standby and watch helplessly as others repeat it..."

[luishs]

A good alternative to Kinetis, also ARM, are Atmel SAM S70, E70, V70 or ST STM32H7, all Cortex M7, faster and cheaper than Kinetis M64, MK66. Easy to locate and good price (SAM, because H7 no yet available).

I have not migrated yet, because I need more information about the DMA. Always the information on DMA is very poor in ALL manufacturers.

If the problems of lack of stock of Kinetis continue, I will also migrate all my designs to other ARM micros, probably to Atmel SAM S70.