[throw827474737]

> Seems like a state intervention would be welcome here.

And that should look like how??

> can't tie up that kind of sums of money for unknown period of time.

Seriously curious now, must have a real cash cow with little development or huge volume?

Because what my company would have needed to pay for the MCU to put in stock for say 3 years is still dwarfed by one developers salary for a year (and the software team alone is varying 5-10, not including electro engineers or all other kinds). So in the aftermath just ridiculous to not have invested that money for the stock when the demand and MCU was clear (and for us it was at that point back already).

Also, nothing would have been better than tieing money that way, it could have made more profit by also becoming a broker now, lol :D

[varispeed]

It is a small business, one guy does EE the other does SE.

Their model was to buy parts as they are needed depending on order volume (JIT).

Now with the shortages it is not possible. You can calculate how many orders you may get within a year and place a back order for these parts. 1000 MCUs alone is like £20k. They were looking at spending £50k total and facing no income at all until the parts arrive.