The underlying problem is silicon Fab capacity. It has nothing to do with the actual manufacturing of the products once all the components arrive. If you don't have components for your product, a new order for components will take a year to arrive just because the factories that turn raw silicon wafers into computer chips are backlogged 12 to 18 months.

Note that all of the existing factories are running around the clock, and although additional facilities are being built it takes time for them to be completed. I'm also assuming that there has been some question about whether this is short term or long term demand which would influence whether you spend a billion dollars or more building a new fab.

On Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 11:57 AM Drew Weaver <drew.weaver@thenap.com> wrote:

Has anyone seen any interesting write ups or analysis on what has been happening with network equipment pricing and availability in the United States over the last couple of years?

Everyone (or at least I did) knew by March 2020 that what manufacturers were doing wasn’t really going to work anymore going forward and yet it’s 2 1/3 years later and we’re still looking at a 1+ year lead time on basic products.

Not to be glib but I am pretty sure I could’ve devised a process to build ethernet switches by hand with a soldering iron by now.

Not to mention how many additional supply chains could’ve been established since then.

Did Huawei actually serve an important purpose in the market?

Did we put too many eggs in the Broadcom basket?

Did the industry come together and “agree” that the time is nigh to charge $16,000 for a Dell S4148T but also that it would take 9 months to get it at that price?

I think it would be fascinating to learn more about what is happening in this market.

Please share any resources on or off-list.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

-Drew