Re:Chip shortages due to lack of investment in right fabs
by exmadscientist on Monday January 31, 2022 @04:13AM
(#30146066)
A lot of parts are modular, if you'll accept "standard packages and pinouts" as "modular". And this helps a lot!
The problem is that the parts themselves aren't standardized. So often a very careful selection process followed by a requalification is required.
Re:Chip shortages due to lack of investment in right fabs
by hughrr on Monday January 31, 2022 @04:03AM
(#30146013)
They’re pretty much doing this with MCUs and power at the moment apparently. Designs are moving to modular so you can respin a carrier board for the available stock rapidly rather than have to respin the entire product and stock.
In a phone or laptop, obviously it would take too much physical space to have such components be changeable, but for vehicles and machinery couldn’t you regulate that common boards/chips/memory be easily accessible and interchangeable to a standard? (Kind of like how you have a fuse panel for your car or a fuse box for your house).
I get that this wouldn’t solve this issue, but it would certainly help by making parts that are susceptible to supply shocks be easily recoverable and reusable.