[cushychicken]

I'm convinced that, if in-person IEEE meetups were still a thing right now, you could drop a tray of ST Micro chips in the middle of the meeting and watch it devolve into a fistfight in seconds.

The chip shortage right now is rough.

[joezydeco]

We need thousands, and we need them in humidity-sealed trays. A handful thrown on a table isn't enough.

[teclordphrack2]

+1 for having to be sealed. We have a handful of companies wanting to sell us needed chips but they are odds and ends, not always packaged. Were always suspect.

[joezydeco]

You also can't expose parts to ambient humidity for very long if you intend to put them through a reflow solder process. Bad things happen.

[Kliment]

Sure you can, you just need to low-temp bake them before reflow to get the moisture back out.