Under the situation of large shortage of IC chips in the market, how can electronic component procurement and engineers make selection and replacement?

In 2020, the COVID-19 broke the normal state of supply and demand of all electronic components. So far, the fluctuation of supply and demand has never been intermittent, which has brought many challenges to the electronic supply chain! In the first half of the year, the supply and demand of passive components was unbalanced, which was mainly affected by the lack of construction and the low production capacity utilization rate.

Due to shortage of stock and price increase ,the direct challenge to engineers and purchasing managers is the alternative selection of products. It is relatively easy to replace the low-end components, but the high-end ICs requires a long period in the test application. The performance parameters and service life of the product must meet the real needs. How to break through the high-end technical challenges? How to realize the selection and replacement of components?

1.The selected components follow the company's normalization principle, and select as few types of materials as possible without affecting the function and reliability.

2.The material whose "preferred level" is "A" in the material code library is preferentially selected.

3. The components whose life cycle is growing and mature are preferred.

4. Select the components that were born and descended to go through the special approval process.

5. Carefully select components whose life cycle is in decline, and prohibit the selection of discontinued components.

6. For power components, the package type with smaller RjA thermal resistance and higher Tj junction temperature is preferred.

7. It is forbidden to select components with package size smaller than 0402 (inclusive).

8. The anti-ESD capability is at least 100V, and anti-static measures are required to be designed.

9. The MSL (moisture sensitivity level) of the selected components cannot be greater than level 5 (inclusive).

10. The model with sealed vacuum packaging is preferred. If the MSL (moisture sensitivity level) is greater than level 2 (inclusive), sealed vacuum packaging must be used.

11. The tape and reel packaging and tray packaging models are preferred. If it is a device with a moisture sensitivity level of 2 or above, it is required to be packaged with a disc-shaped plastic tape, and the disc-shaped plastic tape must be able to withstand a high temperature of 125 °C.

12. For key components, there are at least two brands of models that can be substituted for each other, and some should consider solution-level substitution.

13. The materials used should meet the requirements of anti-static, flame retardant, anti-corrosion, anti-oxidation and safety regulations.

Looking forward to the future, with the strong pull of 5G base stations, 5G smartphones, big data centers, AIoT and new energy vehicles, high-performance MLCCs, LTCCs, high-precision resistors, inductors, high-precision connectors, relays, crystal oscillators, etc. There is a strong market demand!

At present, high-end applications such as automotive, industrial, medical and other high-end applications have higher and higher requirements on the accuracy of capacitive resistance. How to deal with high requirements for the environment, etc., are all topics that engineers are concerned about.