<story><title>PlayDate Fulfillment Delayed</title><url>https://lists.play.date/w/C1CCc0cxLPvgKc6tC8jVmg</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>laydn</author><text>The lead times for the STM microcontrollers have gone way beyond unreasonable. &amp;quot;730 days&amp;quot; I think is a polite way of saying &amp;quot;we may never supply you with this chip&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I may be way off here but my observation is that chips that are very configurable are the hardest to purchase. For example, the STM32 series have something like ~3000 SKUs ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.digikey.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;filter&amp;#x2F;embedded-microcontrollers&amp;#x2F;685?s=N4IgTCBcDaIM4BcC2BmCBdAvkA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.digikey.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;filter&amp;#x2F;embedded-microcon...&lt;/a&gt; ).&lt;p&gt;Normally, this allows every designer to pick the most suitable part and have the lowest total BoM cost. However, in today&amp;#x27;s challenging supply&amp;#x2F;demand environment, the total number of unique parts that must be manufactured must be causing a huge problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>negative_zero</author><text>A little bit off. If you are interested:
The link you have there includes several different ways of ordering the same part but packaged differently: Cut Tape, Reels, Tubes, Trays etc. Some of those have will different sizes of packaging (eg tray of 50 vs tray of 200). I&amp;#x27;d divide that 3000 by 3-5.&lt;p&gt;Other filters will be same part but different temperature range; same MCU but different footprint (which would require a board re-spin but not normally the end of the world).&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll also get SKUs where different peripherals and flash is available which is generally the same die, but not everything worked when tested at the fab so it will get binned appropriately.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s other filters but I guess I am saying the total number of SKUs of die that are getting made is not anywhere near 3000.&lt;p&gt;You are right with the 730 day lead time. Actually anything beyond a year you can interpret that way.&lt;p&gt;Even when there is stock, the parts will be on allocation anyway. Normally the biggest existing customers get first dibs and everyone outside of that circle is given an absurd lead time. Sometimes you can push your way in if your order is big enough.&lt;p&gt;I feel for the PlayDate team. It&amp;#x27;s not a fun time when this happens. Even my usual rule of &amp;quot;make sure there are at least two alternatives if possible&amp;quot; is failing in this shortage.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve even resorted to ordering dev kits and scavenging parts from there which is good fun :)</text></comment>
<story><title>PlayDate Fulfillment Delayed</title><url>https://lists.play.date/w/C1CCc0cxLPvgKc6tC8jVmg</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>laydn</author><text>The lead times for the STM microcontrollers have gone way beyond unreasonable. &amp;quot;730 days&amp;quot; I think is a polite way of saying &amp;quot;we may never supply you with this chip&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I may be way off here but my observation is that chips that are very configurable are the hardest to purchase. For example, the STM32 series have something like ~3000 SKUs ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.digikey.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;filter&amp;#x2F;embedded-microcontrollers&amp;#x2F;685?s=N4IgTCBcDaIM4BcC2BmCBdAvkA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.digikey.com&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;filter&amp;#x2F;embedded-microcon...&lt;/a&gt; ).&lt;p&gt;Normally, this allows every designer to pick the most suitable part and have the lowest total BoM cost. However, in today&amp;#x27;s challenging supply&amp;#x2F;demand environment, the total number of unique parts that must be manufactured must be causing a huge problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>quesera</author><text>&amp;quot;730 days&amp;quot; is, of course, exactly two non-leap years.&lt;p&gt;So it seems possible that &amp;quot;two years&amp;quot; is just an overflow in inventory management restocking projections.&lt;p&gt;I.e. &amp;quot;more than we can measure&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;unknown but not soon&amp;quot;, etc.</text></comment>