Now impossible to design with STM32 due to no stock and/or crazy prices - is it going to change?

[PMath.4]

I' ve just visited the JLC website and this is the current stock of STM32. My open source design for a STM32H743 based computer is now dead as there aren't any. Matek, the developer of flight controllers for drones has stopped production because of a combination of cost and lack of availability of processors.

Another design I did for one of the 64-pin H7 processors is also dead as AFAIK they have never seen silicon since their announcement.

Even prices for things like F411 / F407 are going through the roof.

Is this ever going to change or should I just give up on ST?

[waclawek.jan]

> Is this ever going to change or should I just give up on ST?

My crystal Cube says: yes. Unfortunately, it was not clear, which part of the question was this answer for... 😉

Maybe we should have a #shortage tag ("topic") here.

JW

[Tesla DeLorean]

You probably aren't going to see free stock at retail distribution in a year, because everyone else has got orders in covering all available production slots. The retail distributors have the least amount of forward planning as the demand arrives randomly, from random purchasers. The people with orders on the books have purchasers/planners, who plan ahead, and have watched deliver times creeping out for the entirety of 2021

Any free stock at retail is going to be snapped up quickly, and anyone with uncommited stock in the stockroom is blowing off the dust and making book..

How much of the demand is real? Probably not all of it, as people have double/triple ordered things, plus they know there's a good resale markup if they don't need them. It's not that physical delivery is a problem, unlike oil, corn or pumpkin futures, you can put tens of millions of semi inventory in a storage locker, or small warehouse.

The inflection point is when delivers exceed actual usable need, and when other parts preclude a complete build. At this point you'll see stuff show up in the secondary market, and the pricing will depend on how much over abundance there is, and how much the banks/businesses want their cash back.

This inflection is probably nearer out than order deliveries placed today, but you'd typically hedge the prospect with actual orders on the books to take delivery next year

[Tom Schrauf]

@Community member​ "you can put tens of millions of semi inventory in a storage locker"

Don't semiconductors have some sort of expiry date (best use before at least). I heard this once and it was somehow about humidity in the soldering process ?

[Tesla DeLorean]

It becomes an issue when open to the environment, but the parts are vacuum sealed in bags and are transportable via air and sea.

But near term, taking transitory possession, is no where near as complicated as oil, gold, etc

[PMath.4]

I was hoping for a comment from someone at ST........

[Uwe Bonnes]

France is on hibernation until after Jan. 6.

[Tesla DeLorean]

Not sure it will help, it's not like they're at less than 100% available capacity throughout 2022, ​your local sales rep should be able to give a delivery time in weeks, but it might be 40-50 weeks and either push out or pull in, depending on several factors. These likely to be labour, materials, importance/size of customer, governmental assertion of war powers acts, others cancelling or pushing out based on ability to source ALL parts to fab their board/product, or business conditions for selling them.

[Tesla DeLorean]

While it might be nice for ST to publicly engage here, not sure they have much control of how retail distribution works, or how quickly any free​ stock will be hoovered up.

They are going to build to order and do so on a mix of products based on geometries and fab availability​. If I were them I'd focus on the smallest die, highest yielding and highest sell price configurations.