Global semiconductor shortage

It’s widely known that the global semiconductor supply chain has been subject to significant shortages in recent months. We strive to provide our customers with tools to frictionlessly scale their fleets of IoT devices. This is how we're planning to continue doing so during the global chip shortage.

How are we affected by this?

Semiconductor companies are facing difficulties meeting demand across their entire product lines. This means both simple and complex integrated circuits from most brands have longer than usual lead times.

More specifically, we're seeing increasing delays in many of the components we use to make balenaFins and EtcherPros (eMMCs, WiFi modules, power ICs, etc). While usual lead times for such components were previously around 8 weeks, lead times are now closer to 40+ weeks.

We have also started facing serious shortages in some accessories, most importantly the Raspberry Pi Compute Module. Given the latest news from the Raspberry Pi foundation, the situation might not improve before Q3 2022.

What are we doing to minimize the impact?

Our supply chain team has been working hard to secure all the components required for future manufacturing rounds well in advance. This means purchasing from many different suppliers around the world as soon as a required component is stocked. Our priority is to maintain higher stock levels than we normally would in order to meet customer demand.

How will our customers be affected?

While we are doing our best to limit the impact of the situation, it is expected that some SKUs will be out of stock from time to time. We expect to receive shipments according to the following timeline:

• Mid-February: balenaFins (all storage sizes)
  
• Raspberry Pi Compute modules are not expected before 2023.
  

How can our customers help?

The more we know about your future plans, the better we can support you in this process. If you have upcoming deadlines that can't be met by the above leadtimes, we suggest you let our team know (store@balena.io) to discuss potential alternatives.

We’ve recently enabled online backorders. Backordering a product from our store means that your units will be reserved from the next available batch, and orders will be fulfilled in the order they were received. Make sure to place your orders as soon as possible to secure a delivery date.

We are working hard to minimize the disruptions this situation might cause to your expansion plans. Thank you for your understanding and support!