thanks to AI demand, Lattice cannot make enough FPGAs to fulfill orders on iCE40's (and probably ECP5's) with less than a year of lead time.

[realgene@hachyderm.io]

@whitequark
This whole house of fab-less cards was destined for a collapse. "Let's put a tiny island under constant political and military threat at the epicenter of the entire digital supply chain. What could possibly go wrong?"

Not like we haven't been here before, either:

Mitsubishi to resume making chip packaging resin after quake

Computerworld (www.computerworld.com)

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@RealGene oh, 2011 is before I was involved in electronics production in any real capacity

[lynne@mk.pars.ee]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems Surely there are plenty of spare old foundries to make them? AI chips really need EUV these days.

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@lynne it's not about the silicon. the silicon is fine

it's about the little piece of printed circuit board that redistributes signals from the bond wires to the balls under the BGA

[lynne@mk.pars.ee]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems *that's* the bottleneck?
I'd have thought that this would have been vertically integrated into the production.

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@lynne you would think so, but there's a worldwide shortage of the stuff now

[henearxn@chaos.social]

@lynne @whitequark funnily enough apparently one of the major producers of this stuff is a company primarily making sauces and other seasoning, which at some point branched out into making packaging materials as a side thing...

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@lynne specifically of the epoxy resin, which is only manufactured in a few places in the world

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@HeNeArXn @lynne oh like Ball jars?

[henearxn@chaos.social]

@whitequark @lynne seems more resins and such, branching out from the chemistry they had developed for food science. This company: https://www.ajinomoto.com

[ariac@donotsta.re]

@whitequark there we go with FPGA shortage again for more absurd reasons this time...

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@ariac i wonder if TQFPs are still being packaged

[ariac@donotsta.re]

@whitequark and i wonder if the price of used wire bonders already got higher.

i've been coincidentally asked about it today

[irina@critter.cafe]

@HeNeArXn @whitequark the global hardware industry is reliant on the company that makes MSG; the global software industry is reliant on furries. there's a connection here

[azonenberg@ioc.exchange]

@whitequark is the part available in WLCSP? Even if it means a more expensive PCB for early units, a polyimide RDL should not be affected by a BT shortage

[azonenberg@ioc.exchange]

@whitequark (also the consequences of a BT shortage are going to be immense it's gonna hit LGA modules, BGAs, SiPs...)

[emeb@society.oftrolls.com]

@azonenberg @whitequark Did someone say BT shortage?

[ignaloidas@not.acu.lt]

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems

in theory it would be possible to just glue a die to the PCB and bond it out during assembly, in practice this would be prohibitively expensive as far as I know

Considering that most calculators have chips packaged this way, I assume it's because of the setup costs, not the per-unit costs, right?

[0h00000000@ioc.exchange]

@whitequark Check out the newer Lattice Nexus parts - 9k to 100k logic cells. In stock at Mouser.

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(www.mouser.com)