How to handle semiconductor shortage as Hardware Design Engineer?

 

Semiconductor shortage is one of the major problems right now the electronics industry is going through. This shortage can be attributed to the COVID scenario across the world, which disrupted the entire supply chain. The productivity of the companies is taking a hit and many engineers around the world are in a fix. Even the components from major companies are not available and the entire distribution channel got affected. As a hardware engineer, it is tough time to decide on usage of specific components in design. This entire scenario is going to have an affect on the cost. No more a hardware designer can choose a low cost component and use it in the design. This is due to the fact that there is always low confidence on low cost component manufacturers, as depending on standard manufactures is better than to rely on manufacturers which are less reliable there by engineers are left with choice of using high cost components. Some of the measures like checking the end of life and selecting a component are no more applicable in these scenarios. Let us list down some of the tips that can be followed in these scenarios:

• If you are working on a design and selected components based on current availability, it is preferable to order immediately as normal way of ordering during manufacturing may not work. Be proactive in ordering the components
• Try to identify several alternates for the components during the design stage itself. Even though they are not footprint compatible, select parts and keep them as an alternate so that based  on component availability quick PCB change can be done and released
• Age old method of relying on standard distributors (Digi-key, Mouser, etc) should be avoided in these scenarios.
• At the same time ensure that you select distributor who is known by name. Else you might end up with duplicate parts leading to design failure
• Plan to have buffer in your costing of the board as this might increase due to increased costing of the components
• While prototyping can be postponed based on scenarios, production cannot be done that way. Any delay in production might lead to losses for your company and also customer confidence is lost. So, try to order in advance and stock for the coming production slots.
• Have alternate designs in place to avoid dependency on single manufacturer. When it comes to Gerber release call can be taken based on component availability
• Quick decision making is the need of the hour in these scenarios. Don't wait till the train has passed. By the time decisions are taken and implemented, your parts must have disappeared from the distributor shelf.
• Like how we follow V-Model, where testing phase is thought of during the design stage, similarly component purchase phase must be thought of during the design phase. Who knows some industry experts might come up with V-Model kind of approach as a standard process to handle these scenarios.

The big lesson learnt from these scenarios is that relying on single source for a specific chip is no more a smart approach. Even during normal scenarios, this is a risky approach, so, have alternate options.