We noticed since the end of last year that obtaining components becomes harder and harder. In march the situation got even more serious: Lead times of one year or more are now common for some components. Though this happened for some odd parts every now and then, currently the better part of processors, sensors, motor control ICs and so on are all out of stock. It is currently not known to us, how long this will be the case, however we assume, that the supply issues will last for the rest of the year.
Causes for the supply issues are the coronavirus pandemic and the rising demand for ICs for game consoles, laptops etc. This demand exceeds the number of available silicon wafers. Additionally, the outage of foundrys in Texas due to extreme snow fall, as well as a plant in Japan that was gutted by fire, further reduce the availability of ICs.
We, as well as many other companies, stocked up our inventory. Luckily we already had a large stock of the most important components, so we don't expect near-term supply issues for a large part of our products. However single products can have longer lead times in the near future.
The first product, that will not be available for the next months is the IMU Brick. It is already out of stock. Production was already planned and the components were ordered, but our shipment of BNO055 sensors was cancelled. It seems to be the case, that this sensor is globally out of stock and the manufacturer does not specify binding delivery dates. The sensor seems to be not available for the next six months. We have already placed orders and will start to produce the Bricks as soon as we get our hands on the sensors. As an alternative we still have the IMU Bricklet 3.0 in stock. This Bricklet also uses the BNO055 sensor and can be combined with a Master Brick to replace an IMU Brick (minimal software changes have to be made).
If you plan to order large quantities, feel free to contact us, so we can make sure, the necessary components can be supplied shortly.