Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1071356
JANUARY 2019 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 13 of electric vehicles mean that traditional plastic film capacitors are no longer suitable, so ceramic MLCCs are increasingly being used. This requirement for MLCCs has brought about a new regulatory agency within the Automotive Electronics Council (AEC) whose mission is to promote the standardization of reliability and qualification for automotive electronic components including high-temperature and high-humidity resistance, thermal-shock resistance, and durability. As a new agency, AEC needed standards and requirements such as: • AEC-Q100: Integrated circuits (ICs) • AEC-Q101: Discrete semiconductor components (transistors, diodes, etc.) • AEC-Q200: Passive components (capacitors, inductors, etc.) With these new standards, it is estimated that nearly 50% of the components tested have failed, which has resulted in a five-fold increase in the demand for these specific electronic components. How Long Will This Crisis Last? The million-dollar question is, "How long do experts think that this will last?" I am not exactly sure, but I do not see this ending anytime soon due to several main reasons: 1. Expected Growth in the Electronic Industry According to Statista, the electronics industry is estimated to grow 6% in 2019 and 8% in 2020. That is great news for our entire industry, but it comes with some major problems. First, will there be enough coffee to support this massive engineering effort? And second, all of this growth will require new hardware (Figure 4). 2. Part Manufacturers to End Entire Lines of Less-profitable Components The parts on the chopping block are some of the larger package or case sizes such as anything above 0603 for discrete components. Manufacturers are closing those lines to convert them over to the higher demand components. This narrows the component selection and reduces the supply. Figure 3: Growth rates for the global electronics industry.