I was listening to an engineer explain why some car brands are having problems getting computers and newer car brands aren’t. The older brands designed their computers years ago to a different standard of parts. Those older parts had, over time, become something microchip manufacturers had to reset their production lines to make, so they’d do them in big batches and then retool to make the newer, smaller form cell phone style parts. Suddenly, the microcircuit manufacturers could sell all of the newer smaller form circuits they could make. They didn’t have the time or capacity to set up to make the older, larger form parts. Thus, the newer car manufacturers, such as Tesla, that designed with the newer parts were getting the parts they needed. The older manufacturers didn’t want to make the investment and take the risk of designing a new product when the old one worked just fine. Now, those manufacturers have a Delima. Either redesign, which costs time and has many risks, or wait for the small form demand to reduce. It’s a gamble either way.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for posting.
That's just life in the high-tech manufacturing world. Everyone in that field has to deal with it. It's been that way for a long time.
There even exists a "secondary" or "grey" market for chips that become obsolete simply because their supplier stops making this. People actually invest in chips that they think will go obsolete before the market for them dries up. If the play works, they can sell the hoarded chips for a big mark-up to desperate users who will suffer a loss of production if they can't get them.