Hello everyone. I thought I'd give you an update on what's up on the work front with us. Not like you'd asked, but such as I am an entrepreneur and a maker, I like to occasionally talk about the stuff we are doing.
The semiconductor industry is going through a serious supply shortage, caused by (a) too many MBAs trying to create short term value in an industry that requires billions of dollars and years of patience before new plants churn out product, (b) Apple, Intel and their ilk bullying TSMC into focusing on cutting edge 5nm processes, (c) said suits forgetting that the majority of the world's chips are still made on boring old 100nm, and those chips power everything from cars to microwaves to the motherboards that run said fancy-ass 5nm processors.
The chip shortage has led to our trusted, years old suppliers rendered incapable of providing us with motherboards that power the computers we make. Some not so trusted suppliers have resorted to price gouging, doubling the prices of their boards in a matter of months (the Chinese might be communists, but they know very well how supply and demand in the free market works).
Ideally, this shortage, coupled with the out of control Covid crisis in Delhi/NCR, should have made us quietly shut our shop and wait out the storm. However, I am the kind of beast that thrives on change and chaos. Unlike me, most people in my team are sane, and prefer to keep things as stable as possible. Which is why, over the years, they’ve convinced me to make as few changes to stable products as possible.
We will start running out of boards and other components by the end of this month. Some important boards - mainstays that we sold thousands of units of - have already vanished from our shelves. Because we are smart, we spent Feb and March placing large orders for other, different boards, from new suppliers, and these have started arriving. But these boards do not fit our existing chassis, power supplies or processes. We have to retool everything.
What fun! This is my moment of glory. Since change is inevitable, I am bringing it in by the bucket-loads. But there is also a serious angle to it. One is that we expect a lock-down to happen as soon as the assembly elections are over. Before that, we need to finish all the new design work we can do. Second, if our production line stops, we will have to furlough folks. We did not cut pay or lay off people through the entire Covid crisis, but our finances are now stretched thin. So we are racing against time to get new products into our lines before they stop.
(continued in the next post)
The semiconductor industry is going through a serious supply shortage, caused by (a) too many MBAs trying to create short term value in an industry that requires billions of dollars and years of patience before new plants churn out product, (b) Apple, Intel and their ilk bullying TSMC into focusing on cutting edge 5nm processes, (c) said suits forgetting that the majority of the world's chips are still made on boring old 100nm, and those chips power everything from cars to microwaves to the motherboards that run said fancy-ass 5nm processors.
The chip shortage has led to our trusted, years old suppliers rendered incapable of providing us with motherboards that power the computers we make. Some not so trusted suppliers have resorted to price gouging, doubling the prices of their boards in a matter of months (the Chinese might be communists, but they know very well how supply and demand in the free market works).
Ideally, this shortage, coupled with the out of control Covid crisis in Delhi/NCR, should have made us quietly shut our shop and wait out the storm. However, I am the kind of beast that thrives on change and chaos. Unlike me, most people in my team are sane, and prefer to keep things as stable as possible. Which is why, over the years, they’ve convinced me to make as few changes to stable products as possible.
We will start running out of boards and other components by the end of this month. Some important boards - mainstays that we sold thousands of units of - have already vanished from our shelves. Because we are smart, we spent Feb and March placing large orders for other, different boards, from new suppliers, and these have started arriving. But these boards do not fit our existing chassis, power supplies or processes. We have to retool everything.
What fun! This is my moment of glory. Since change is inevitable, I am bringing it in by the bucket-loads. But there is also a serious angle to it. One is that we expect a lock-down to happen as soon as the assembly elections are over. Before that, we need to finish all the new design work we can do. Second, if our production line stops, we will have to furlough folks. We did not cut pay or lay off people through the entire Covid crisis, but our finances are now stretched thin. So we are racing against time to get new products into our lines before they stop.
(continued in the next post)