Jellybean Parts | Hackaday

In the world of electronic manufacturing, bad luck has been shrouded in a faint shadow. Finding parts is becoming more and more difficult, and the parts that can be found are expensive. No, it has nothing to do with the tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese goods last summer. This is a question of no scapegoat. This is the core issue of any economic system. This is a shortage of capacitors and resistors.

When we first reported

, Things are fine for the time being. Yes, the major manufacturers say that they are splitting the production lines until they can be profitable by restarting them, but they are relieved: the parts are in stock and the cost is not that much.

Now, this is a different story. We are in a capacitor shortage in 2018, and we don’t know when it will get better.

The passive component industry (manufacturers of resistors, capacitors and diodes that are found boring but vital in every electronic device) is on the verge of shortage. You can always buy a 220Ω, 0805 resistor, but instead of spending 2 cents for a penny like now, it's better to buy one in the near future.

Yageo, one of the largest manufacturers of surface mount (SMD) resistors and multilayer ceramic capacitors, announced in December that they would not accept orders for new chip resistors. Yageo cut production of cheap chip resistors to focus on high-margin niche market components for automotive, IoT and other industrial uses,

. Earlier this month, Yaego resumed accepting orders for chip resistors, but 

 (For articles behind the paywall, please try to click

).

As a result, there are rumors that the sales volume of passive components in the Shenzhen electronics market is very high, and several tweets from the electronics industry say that the prices of certain components have doubled. Because every electronic device uses these "bean-shaped" parts, reduced supply or increased prices means that certain products will not be shipped on time, profits will decrease, or the price of the latest electronic products will increase.

The question remains: Are we on the verge of a shortage of resistors, and what does it mean to have a manufacturer without the required parts?

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