Update: as of January 22nd, we are now in stock of Logic 8 (hooray!) and we are projected to remain so, with at most perhaps a 1-week gap in about 3-4 weeks.
Sadly, as of today (December 29th) we are now out of Logic 8, completely. I apologize — I know this is a terrible inconvenience for many of you, who rely on our product to get important stuff done every day.
Alternate sources, my lead time estimate, and the backstory are below.
Alternate Sources
As of today, the following US distributors still have some stock of Logic 8:
Sadly, the distributors above are now sold out as well.
Lead Time
I expect to have new Logic 8 inventory arrive next week, and should be shipping out to customers by Thursday the 28th at the latest. I do expect we may run out of stock again briefly in mid-February.
The lead time is not likely to be less than a full 30 days, and it may be longer. The best case to expect would be Feb 1st, and it could be as late as April 1, although I expect this is now unlikely. We’re going to try and beat the Feb 1st date, but there is no guarantee of success on this.
Today is December 29th January 7th 19th. I’ll update the above lead time and distributor list at least every week.
What happened
A single-source, critical component for Logic 8, Pro 8, and Pro 16 was canceled by Analog Devices earlier this year. The required PCB redesign for this part is non-trivial, and requires firmware, software, and HDL changes — so we decided to push it out a year so we could focus on more pressing matters. We ordered two years worth of the part.
The last date to make the life time buy was early November, and our manufacturing partner OSE placed our final order months before this date, with an expected delivery this month. A few weeks ago it came to light that ADI was going to slip the delivery to the end of February 2016; OSE and their distribution partner have been battling hard with ADI to bring in the date , but so far we don’t have a definitive improvement in that delivery date.
We have extra of this part, but we have to carefully ration them for Logic Pro 8 and Logic Pro 16, because the financial consequences of not doing so would be radically more severe. Logic 8 as you may guess is quite popular, but due to its lower relative price, Pro 8 and Pro 16 contribute a far larger percentage of total contribution margin. Even then we are going to be dangerously close to running out of those models as well.
The good news is that OSE is being super aggressive at solving this problem on our behalf, having managed to escalate the issue all the way to ADI’s VP-level, which is looking promising at the moment. Having the right partner fight for you makes a huge difference. What’s especially interesting is that 75% of OSE’s business is IC package & test – so they know exactly how long various steps in semiconductor processes should take if they are actually being escalated, vs not escalated — and therefore they know if they are getting a load of BS or not with respect to the lead time.
Of course in addition to OSE’s efforts we’ve been investigating exactly what it would take to redesign the board and software/firmware/HDL. It’s doable but as you might imagine not a super fast fix to the issue due to the multiple prototype builds required. We also ordered two years worth of the EOL’d part, which puts us in the awkward (although certainly manageable) position of supporting multiple versions of the same product at the same time.
Most recently (and bizarrely) OSE managed to locate a 100% pin compatible replacement part from a small and relatively unknown semiconductor manufacturer here in the Bay Area. The part has a different data sheet, but the numbers on the data sheet are identical – and I have since confirmed with the company that it is – in fact – the identical part. This is not commodity part by any means, and this is not just a pin compatible clone, but literally the same ASIC design – same IP. I look forward to learning exactly how the same IP managed to end up being owned and manufactured by two different entities. No doubt there was some joint development agreement between the two small companies who independently brought the part to market around 2010. Or who knows, maybe it’s juicier than that. Semiconductors is a crazy business. So the good news is that we may well have a short and long term 2nd source for this part, which would be huge.
Current Plan
Note: despite my optimism below please do not expect any Logic 8 from us any earlier than 30 days out.
Progress has been slow due to the holidays, but on Monday Jan 4th OSE will learn if we can in fact order the stock of this alternate (identical) part — i.e. if we can get a reasonable price. Assuming we can get the stock we will order all of it and immediately run a test PCBA to just double confirm that this is the identical part, followed by production, probably of Logic 8.
The alternative part still does not have a definite lead time, for some reason the company is dragging their feet. I remain optimistic as we continue to force the issue. Pricing initially looks like it could be an issue as well.
Also on monday OSE will have updates from ADI as to if the lead time, given the ADI VP-level involvement, if in fact it can be shorted. Given the current state of production, OSE believes that the parts could ship in a little over a week if they we’re given appropriate priority. The wafer/die is already manufactured (TSMC) and on the way to the packaging/test house, the lead time of which completely controls the schedule.
It now looks like we will have parts in hand by February 1st, and OSE is working to accelerate this. Overall this is good news.
If the above two items look proposing, we can immediately release the additional parts we do have for Logic 8 production, since we would be assured that Logic Pro 8 and Pro 16 would also have enough parts. Absolute best case scenario we could start shipping Logic 8 backorders on the 18th of January.
I have released the order to build Logic 8 using the EOL parts we still have in stock, based on the improved lead time. With luck this means we be back in stock of Logic 8 by the last week of January, and perhaps a bit sooner.
