Z.
QUOTE "Once solely used in PCs and mobile phones, semiconductors are now vital in cars, kitchen appliances, TVs, smart speakers, thermostats, smart light bulbs and even some dog collars."
Semiconductors (but not necessarily "chips") were definitely in washing machines in the early 1970s, but I think most people had chips in home appliances such as TVs well before we even started to think we might have a mobile phone.
Agree, but that is typical DM journalism. A single transistor or even a diode is a semiconductor device. Of course what is actually being harvested are CMOS microcontrollers and logic arrays, which we did not have inside white goods until quite recently. There is a bigger story of course, that is the utter failure of the cost optimised 'just in time' supply chain to handle a single point failure, namely that for all the 'makers' of chips, the vast majority are actually "fabless" and in effect buy time of one of very few foundries, to get their wafers processed for them.
The only semiconductor plants in the UK for example are either small scale research facilities or tooled up for niche processes. These are not the ones with the delays, nor are the semi-manual prototyping lines from IBM and similar companies who can do an ASIC for you - at high cost mind, in a matter of perhaps 10 weeks. What is booked solid are the fully automated lines that knock out chips for pennies (as there are a few thousand chips per wafer) on unremarkable processes, like 5 or 7 layer metal over 300nm CMOS. Pretty much all of these are far eastern and run on such tight margins, that there is no slack capacity for the next few years. I have been quoted 108 weeks (yes, 2 years!!) for several 'catalog' parts, and this is far from unique - leading to all sorts of odd behaviour, like production surplus that would normally be scrap, perhaps including out of spec devices, turning up where they should not. These are very interesting times.
Mike
Not perhaps as true as it was - the software fashion for being very last minute with the final bug fixes means that devices that can be re-flashed - i.e. reprogrammed after manufacture, maybe even in the field, are popular with designers even in cases where it is not strictly necessary, as the pain of actually changing a chip for a late firmware upgrade is too great to risk.
Also for a some years now reprogrammable devices with EEPROM or even FLASH ROM internally have been actually cost competitive and in some cases cheaper than the OTP equivalent. And mask programming at the foundry is so last century as to not even be offered on may process lines any more. The military like it of course for security reasons.
Mike.
So, washing machine manufacturers have been able to buy chips and build thousands of washing machines which are now unsold and in storage, whilst car manufacturers have not been able to buy chips so they are buying these spare washing machines to strip down?
About as believable as most of the Daily Mail stories, there will be one about cars being in a fast spin on the M1 in a few weeks time because they have washing machine chips in them.
I think is probably more accurate that the white goods manufacturers ordered in their parts rather earlier, and what they really have is a inventory of 'new' old stock, i.e, spares that were bought in but not yet used. Such things do have something like a 'best before' date as the solder pads oxidise, and while parts can be hand soldered when many years beyond this, they would normally be rejected for machine soldering as proper wetting of the joints is not guaranteed.
Actually de-soldering parts in the component recovery sense is certainly possible but commercially it is fraught with risk, and in general reliability like a new part cannot be guaranteed without extensive/ expensive testing. Without that checking it is rather like driving a part-worn tyre... It can be done well and may need to happen very occasionally but is not really a technique suitable for mass production.
But other odd things are certainly being done
mike.
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