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Electronic Components Obsolescence & Supply Chain Shortage Management
With the rising demand for cutting edge technology and advanced feature-rich devices, modern electronic components are evolving at lightning pace and manufacturers are constantly pivoting to produce the latest components. With this, the rate of parts obsolescence is rendering components outdated faster than ever.
It is a good design practice (DFX) to build a product using modules and components that will maximize the lifetime of end products, while keeping in mind that component lifespan can vary as well. For products that have long lifecycles, it is important to consider updated components which in turn involves detailed research on the component lifecycle before starting a new design.
To effectively avoid obsolescence issues, designers must keep the following in mind:
1) Select mainstream components.
2) Identify the component lifecycle stage.
3) Stay up to date on industry trends and component roadmaps.
4) Maintain a close relationship with component manufacturers and both franchised and non-franchised distributors.
When you encounter multiple obsolete, NRFND or long lead time / no franchised supplier stock available for electronic components, NeuronicWorks Inc. (NWI) has several solutions at our disposal to help you return to manufacturing:
1) For unique ICs/parts that have no stock at franchised distributors and no possible alternate parts, NWI can facilitate the purchase of those components from non-franchised distributors at a higher cost than the average 6 months price. We ensure that each component has valid documentation displaying the original manufacturer’s factory origin, correct part number, valid lot & date codes, functionality and quality to ensure components are genuine, not counterfeit.
2) For unique ICs/parts, we can strategically purchase and stock each component from several different franchised North American distributors (Arrow Electronics, AVNET, Mouser Electronics, Future Electronics, Digi-key) who have the necessary qty. of stock available. Under normal market circumstances, most PCBA Contract Manufacturers prefer to purchase from one or two franchised distributors.
3) For unique electronic parts, re-design the PCB to accommodate the same IC and manufacturer but in a different SMT package from your preferred North America distributors (i.e., If your current HW design uses the Texas Instruments # SN74AVC4T245RGYR (VQFN16 package) translation IC parts which are not in stock, and the Texas Instruments # SN74AVC4T245PWR (TSSOP16 SMT package) parts are available in stock at franchised distributors; this IC package change would only require a small PCB footprint creation and routing change on the bare PCB.
4) If the above solutions are not suitable, we will consider and suggest a functional alternative part in the same package and pinout (possibly) that may require firmware changes to accommodate the new IC(s). This is a typical replacement solution for eMMC MLC/SLC NAND flash ICs, SPI/I2C serial NOR flash ICs and parallel bus DDR2/DDR3/DDR4 SDRAM ICs that are designed to the specific JEDEC package pinout, interface and functional standard.
With several years of design and redesign expertise and working with a close-knit community of partners like Analog Devices, Arrow Electronics, AVNET, DigiKey, Future Electronics, Innophase, Microchip, Mouser Electronics, NXP, Onion, Samtec, Silicon Labs, ST Microelectronics, Telit , among others, provides our customers access to the latest updated information on both current and future components along with supply chain information that can help accurately determine the product lifecycle and manage obsolescence.
