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A Pro-Audio Industry Disaster: AKM Factory Fire

Not too difficult to redesign around another DAC chipset from another manufacturer. Expect to see a lot of spinning as upgrades...
 
They’ll farm out fabrication to bridge the gap, same as happened when the factory making ram chip glue flooded a number of years ago. Spike in pricing as people make hay in the supply chain then it’ll settle down.
 
They’ll farm out fabrication to bridge the gap

It's not so easy to move a design to another fab that's not on the same process. A move like this would mean a lot of planning and work and probably not get viable product out before the main plant is back onstream.
 
It's not so easy to move a design to another fab that's not on the same process. A move like this would mean a lot of planning and work and probably not get viable product out before the main plant is back onstream.
Not only process to fabricate and package the chips, but what about all the specialised test equipment to verify the product ? I'd guess that the latter is actually the biggest issue.
 
That's probably the easy bit. Testers are easier to move if they're in the same building and there'll be a Teradyne that can run the production test programmes at a third party no problem.
The assembly and test is probably not at that site anyway.

'There’s a rumor that AKM will pivot their IC masks to independent fab houses'.

Sounds like maybe they have an easily reproducible process and can indeed get back up and running for output through third parties.

Loads of fabs still left in Japan luckily.
 
Considering perfectly good DACS were available from the word go with the the TDA1540/TDA1541 in the early 80s I don’t think there is much to worry about from a consumer POV. It’s not like ASML got flooded or China invaded Taiwan, that would be a brown underwear alert in the semiconductor industry.
 
AKM are (were) by far the biggest supplier of DACs and ADC's. I would be surprised if they didn't have at least 50% of the market.
When CD first came out Philips considered a 16 bit DAC too difficult to make. Sony managed it but Philips used a 14 bit device (TDA1540) and oversampled to get effectively 16 bits.
 
Not just audio, they are big in the magnetic sensor market so probably critical to half the car industry for ABS and engine sensors.
Too much of the electronics industry is down to a single factory - good for shareholders, but a disaster for the customers if something happens
 
Yes, when you can supply world demand from 3-4batches per month and to a JIT market, there's no incentive to run from more than a single fab. Yes, you can move production to a different fab but it's a lot of work.
Critical parts may be qualified for production at a different fab and ready to be switched on in 6wks but who's going to pay for that contingency?
We used to supply a sensor maker with chips for braking systems and when we had a fire it quickly dried up the supply. Got around it by sending partially fabbed wafers for some layers out to other suppliers but that was not a big fire like AKM.
 
I'm expecting VERY severe disruption. Half of all DACs and streamers etc no longer available for a while.

That would be good news for the environment.

Who needs another new DAC anyway, the world's already full of them, and most are competent enough...
 
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I wonder whether this might be the moment that Chinese AKM-a-like chips appear.
 
I thought this thread was another pro-audio-sound-shite one...

I already has a plenty of DAC's at home, several that's not even in use. So, where is the problem? Everybody just hold on to what they have or must the pro world buy new gear every time they are making a new recording? Yeah, I knew some of us HiFi-folks buy new gear more often than software to play on it, but we are certified crazy...
 


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