Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1069358
14 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2019 think you'll start to see relief and the few players that are left will be able to pick it up. But, in the larger case sizes, I don't see much new capacity coming on in those. What we're doing in that sector is working with our customers. We're doing BOM analysis for them and giving them options for crossing. I'm meeting with a lot of them personally. We're encouraging them to look at redesigns based on the lifecycle of their products to make sure that they have coverage for their end-of-life parts. Murata put out a notice earlier this year on end-of-life a lot of parts; March of next year is the last buy. When that hits in March, there will be a big flood, and I believe the lead times will move out further than they are today when all the customers that haven't acted realize that they're not going to get these parts. Murata is the biggest player and has somewhere between 30– 40% of the global market share. We've already received notice from other manufacturers like Temic and ABX that they're not pulling out of those parts, but that they can't handle the additional requirements that are going to be coming at them. So, I believe there's a major problem coming the first of the year. Feinberg: I've had a few very slight indications that there are a few OEMs considering doing what was done back in the '60s and '70s and starting to do their own fabrication and assembly. That's something they went away from totally. Have you heard of any that are considering doing a little of that? Martin: Yes, we've heard some pulling it on the semiconductor side. Now, the MOSFET MLCCs went on the semiconductors like the MOSFET-type products. We've heard that a couple manufacturers are pulling some back in; some CMs may be pulling some but in smaller amounts. The other problem that we're hearing is that the three main fabrication manufacturers sitting in Taiwan are experiencing ingot shortages, so they're having some supply problems on their end. I just read a notice on TSMC, the largest, that they brought a new machine online. The machine had a virus, and they lost their whole run of wafers; it delayed the ViaLinks parts until the fourth quarter, so there are a lot of them. I think everybody's trying to go through the same type on the semiconductors so that they can pull those back in-house—probably easier. Yageo, when I was there, told us the resistors are experiencing raw material issues, which may be driven by the Chinese environmental requirements that they've put in. They've been closing quite a few of their suppliers due to water and air purity requirements. They've had issues with the metal, paper, and substrates that they use. They've had quite a bit of issues just getting raw materials for the resistors. Yageo is your biggest resistor manufacturer, and Murata is your biggest capacitor manufacturer, so there are levels of supply chain issues all the way through. There are raw material and capacity issues. They're moving to support the higher needs of the automotive and handheld sets. They've shifted lines down away from the industrial sector, and there are a lot of different things happening all at the same time. Feinberg: There's even a tremendous difficulty for getting laminate. There are long lead times for PCB fabrications to have laminate just to make the circuit boards.