The main pain point: a perfect storm of costs and visibility

The number one pain point for industrial buyers in 2026 is not an outright shortage like 2021-2022. It is the unpredictable volatility across pricing, lead times, and geopolitics simultaneously, making any planning extremely difficult.

Lead times climbed steadily for 12 months before peaking with a dramatic spike in March 2026, a 67% increase in a single month between February and March, with lead times reaching 40 weeks on certain components. The market had never truly normalized after the post-Covid shortage cycle.

What makes the situation particularly toxic:

When tariffs are announced, threatened, or merely rumored, rational buyers pull purchases forward. This demand compression reduces available stock and drives spot market premiums up almost overnight. Components that were stable at book price for much of 2025 have seen spot market premiums multiply by 2 to 5 times, and even higher in some categories.

The most significant hidden pain point is not price itself. It is part identity and data mismatch: teams waste hours confirming that the reference listed in the BOM is actually the same part a supplier is quoting.

Only 18% of companies have achieved end-to-end visibility across their supply chain. For the majority, the reality looks like fragmented email threads, missed messages due to time zone differences, and the constant fear that something important has slipped through the cracks.

The hardest components to source (excluding memory)

SiC MOSFETs and IGBTs: maximum criticality

SiC MOSFETs, a key technology for electric vehicles and onboard chargers, are in a critical situation at ON Semiconductor. Demand from automotive manufacturers is outpacing available capacity. EV procurement teams must treat SiC allocation as a strategic priority through at least the first half of 2026. Lead times for AEC-Q100 qualified 32-bit MCUs have reached 52 weeks or more across several families. These parts are expected to remain difficult to source through 2028.

Industrial and automotive MCUs on mature nodes

The MCU price war ended in 2025. STMicro, TI, NXP, and Infineon announced price increases effective April 2026, with TI reaching up to 85% increases on certain part numbers. Foundries on mature nodes (40nm to 180nm) critical for industrial MCUs are sold out for all of 2026. STMicro MCU lead times had already reached 55 weeks and the situation is likely to worsen.

Analog and power management components (PMIC, op-amps, ADC/DAC)

The most acute pressure is concentrated on components manufactured on older process nodes, from 90nm to 350nm. These nodes produce analog ICs, power management chips, discretes, and interface chips that appear on virtually every industrial BOM. Precision op-amps, ADCs, DACs, and voltage references used in industrial sensors and medical equipment are seeing a return to allocation. Analog Devices applied 15% price increases across its entire catalog, and 30% on approximately 1,000 military-grade references.

GaN: emerging but already constrained

Chinese export controls on gallium and germanium, implemented in mid-2025, triggered alarm bells as China dominates these supply chains. This adds supply risk for compound semiconductor components such as GaAs and GaN devices.

High-speed connectors and specialty MLCCs

High-speed connectors and multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) are experiencing measurable tightening as hyperscale data center construction accelerates. Sourcing teams working on data center, industrial computing, or AI-edge applications should proactively build buffer stock in these categories. Murata announced increases of 15% to 35% on passives for AI servers. KEMET (Yageo) raised polymer tantalum capacitor prices by 15% to 30% in Q1 2026.

Legacy logic components and end-of-life parts

Many 74xx, CD4000, and older interface families are end-of-life or severely backordered. Tantalum capacitors, high-voltage MLCCs, and polymer aluminum capacitors critical for defense and aerospace continue to face shortages.

A special case: Nexperia

Nexperia’s wafer supply has been halted since October 2025 following export control measures, meaning there is no raw material feed for new production. The company has provided no confirmed timeline for supply resumption. For teams with Nexperia-sourced discretes, logic ICs, or transistors in their BOM, the practical response is to pursue approved alternative sourcing without delay.

Summary

The strategy that sets successful teams apart is anticipating 12 to 18 months ahead, continuously auditing the BOM, qualifying second sources before they are needed, and abandoning just-in-time practices for critical part numbers.

Are some of these components on your BOM?

If you are facing allocation issues, extended lead times, or unexpected price increases on any of the components mentioned in this article, ARTRONIK can help. We specialize in sourcing hard-to-find, allocated, and end-of-life electronic components through our global network of franchised and pre-approved suppliers.

Fill in the quote request form on this page and our team will get back to you quickly with availability and pricing.

Texas Instruments: An Unprecedented Two-Wave Price Offensive

Texas Instruments was the first to pull the pricing lever, and it did so with a scale rarely seen in the analog market.

First wave — Q3 2025: More than 60,000 part numbers were affected by increases ranging from 10% to over 30%. The move sent a strong signal to the entire market: after two years of aggressive price competition in distribution channels, TI was making clear it intended to restore long-term profitability.

Second wave — April 1, 2026: A new, more targeted round of increases hit digital isolators, power management ICs, and industrial and automotive components. Adjustments this time ranged from 15% to as high as 85% on select part numbers — a ceiling that caught the market off guard.

TI’s logic is consistent with its broader industrial strategy: the company has invested heavily over the past several years in new 300mm fabs in the United States. These price increases are partly designed to absorb the depreciation on those assets and restore margins that were compressed during the 2023–2024 down cycle. This is not a reaction to an immediate supply shortage — it is a deliberate, long-term repositioning of TI’s pricing policy.

NXP: A Second Price Adjustment Effective June 1, 2026

NXP took a measured and direct approach. In an official letter dated May 1, 2026, sent to its customers, the company announced price adjustments effective June 1, 2026, citing inflationary cost pressures across several areas it explicitly describes as “beyond our control.”

The factors officially cited by NXP are:

• Raw materials: Rising procurement costs on key input materials
• Energy: Increased operational costs across the manufacturing chain
• Labor: Wage inflation in production regions
• Logistics: Higher transportation and distribution costs
• Supplier inputs: Upstream cost pressure passed through by subcontractors and equipment suppliers

Notably, NXP provides no overall percentage figure in its letter. Part-specific pricing details will be communicated directly by NXP account managers to each customer individually. This deliberately tailored approach contrasts with the broader public announcements made by TI or ADI, and reflects the highly segmented nature of NXP’s portfolio (automotive, industrial, IoT).

For affected buyers, the recommended course of action is to proactively reach out to your NXP account manager before June 1 to obtain the specific pricing grid for your part numbers and assess the impact on your production costs.

The Rest of the Industry: A Wave That Now Covers the Entire Market

The movement initiated by TI has spread across the industry within just a few months. Here is a summary of the main price increases announced:

Analog Devices (ADI) — effective February 1, 2026 Full product line adjustment: 10–15% for standard commercial-grade products, approximately 15% for industrial-grade, and up to 30% on nearly 1,000 military-spec part numbers (suffix /883).

STMicroelectronics — effective April 26, 2026 ST informed customers of increases citing rising material costs from its suppliers, along with higher energy, logistics, and OSAT capacity costs. Specific percentages by product line have not been made public.

Infineon — effective April 1, 2026 Price increases announced on a selection of power devices and integrated circuits. Details by part number communicated to customers individually.

ON Semiconductor (onsemi) — effective April 1, 2026 Price adjustments on certain products, in line with the broader industry trend.

Panasonic — effective February 1, 2026 Increases of 15–30% on 30 to 40 tantalum capacitor references, driven by rising material costs.

Omron — effective February 7, 2026 Increases of 5–50% across PLCs, HMIs, robotics, relays, sensors, and switches.

Intel & AMD — March and April 2026 Both CPU giants have notified customers of increases across their full processor lineups, in the range of 10–15%.

What Is Driving This Industry-Wide Surge?

Several structural factors are converging to create the conditions for these coordinated price increases:

Raw materials under pressure. Copper prices have risen more than 35% year-over-year. Aluminum, palladium, and silver — all critical to chip packaging — have followed similar trajectories.

Foundries running at capacity. SMIC and Hua Hong are reporting utilization rates above 95%. TSMC has raised prices on 3nm and below nodes by 3–10% for 2026, with similar pressures on mature nodes. Vanguard, PSMC, and UMC are planning 10% increases by Q2 2026.

AI as an unexpected demand driver. AI infrastructure growth is now pulling demand well beyond GPUs: power conversion components, signal chain, connectivity, industrial and automotive electronics are all benefiting from this dynamic — and it is giving suppliers the confidence to rebuild pricing power across broader portfolios.

Inventory cycle turning. After two years of channel oversupply, stock levels are normalizing. Buyers who had been able to leverage competition to secure floor pricing now find themselves in a significantly weaker negotiating position.

What This Means for Your Procurement Strategy

This wave of price increases is unlikely to be an isolated event. It marks the beginning of a medium-term repricing cycle across the analog, automotive, and industrial semiconductor segments. A few actions worth taking now:

• Audit your BOM to identify the TI, NXP, ADI, Infineon, and ST part numbers most exposed to increases, particularly in industrial and automotive product lines.
• Review your procurement schedule on active projects: low-cost channel inventory is disappearing fast following the price announcements, as distributors have already begun revaluing their positions.
• Get ahead of lead times: saturation of 8-inch foundry capacity may create allocation pressure on certain families of analog components and MCUs.
• Diversify your sources: where qualified equivalents exist, identify second sources for the part numbers with the highest budgetary impact.

Sources: Official NXP Semiconductors letter dated May 1, 2026; TrendForce, Semicone Electronics, FTC Electronics, 24/7 Wall St., Manufacturing Dive, Utmel — March/April 2026. Price increase percentages (except ADI and TI Q3 2025) are sourced from distributor communications and specialist trade media; cross-reference with official manufacturer notifications before making procurement decisions.

A Measure Rooted in National Security

The justification put forward by the Trump administration is unambiguous: according to the presidential proclamation, the United States manufactures only about 10% of the chips it needs domestically, making it heavily dependent on foreign supply chains — a situation described as a “significant economic and national security risk” for the country.

This is not a new observation. For several years, America’s dependence on Asian foundries — particularly Taiwanese ones — has fueled a strategic debate combining industrial sovereignty and technological competitiveness. Major American companies such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel design their chips in the United States but have them manufactured abroad, primarily by Taiwanese giant TSMC. It is precisely this model that the new measure seeks to challenge.

The decision concludes a nine-month investigation conducted by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Jamieson Greer — the same type of mechanism already used to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals.

In Practice, Who Is Affected?

The 25% tariff applies to semiconductors imported into the United States with the intention of re-exporting them to their destination country. President Trump himself summed up the principle: “We allow them to export these chips, but the United States receives 25% of their value.”

Among the components directly targeted are advanced processors for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing — such as Nvidia’s H200 chips.

What Is Exempted

The proclamation does, however, provide significant exemptions. Semiconductors imported to:

• support the development of the American technology supply chain,
• power American data centers,
• serve start-ups, civilian industrial applications, and public sector uses,

…are not subject to these duties. This granularity reflects a desire to protect domestic innovation while concentrating pressure on segments deemed strategic.

A First Step, With More to Come

The measure is explicitly presented as phase 1. Washington has announced that higher duties on chip imports and their derivatives could be imposed “in the near future,” suggesting a broader second phase is in preparation.

This prospect creates significant uncertainty for the entire industry: manufacturers, distributors, equipment makers, and end buyers must now factor in scenarios of potentially wider taxation.

The Impact on Global Supply Chains

For players in the electronics sector, the logistical and commercial implications are immediate.

For Asian manufacturers, the measure increases the cost of transiting through the United States and complicates export routes to third-party markets. Companies like ASML have already indicated they are working with their supply chain and customers to “limit the impact as much as possible.”

For distributors and importers, the need to revise logistics flows is pressing: transit routes that avoid American soil will become more attractive, at the cost of sometimes complex reorganization.

For OEMs and buyers, particularly in the automotive, industrial, or consumer electronics sectors, rising component costs are a reality to be built into budgets and contracts currently under renegotiation.

More structurally, this decision accelerates thinking around the geographic diversification of production sites and the trade-off between cost, supply security, and regulatory compliance — a trend already underway since the shortages of 2021–2022.

Pressure on Industry to Reshore

The administration’s message is clear: manufacture in the United States and avoid the tariffs. Apple notably announced at the start of the week a $100 billion investment in its American production chain — a decision Trump hailed as the model to follow.

For other players, the equation is more complex. Building or relocating semiconductor manufacturing capacity takes years and requires billions of dollars. Tariff policy therefore acts more as a long-term strategic signal than as a short-term fix to current dependencies.

Key Takeaways for Your Procurement Watch

If you work in procurement, supply chain, or technical management at an industrial or electronics company, here are the risk factors to integrate now:

1. Map your flows: identify whether your components transit through the United States before delivery to Europe or elsewhere.
2. Anticipate tariff pass-through: suppliers exposed to this tax may pass it on to their pricing in the coming weeks.
3. Monitor phase 2: an extension of tariffs to other component categories is officially under consideration.
4. Strengthen supplier diversification: concentration on a single manufacturer or geographic area carries increased risk in this environment.

Sources: Boursorama / Reuters (January 15, 2026), Usine Digitale (January 15, 2026), IT Social (January 16, 2026), La Presse / AP (January 14, 2026), Electroniques.biz (January 15, 2026).

1. TSMC and the CHIPS Act: A Third Fab in Arizona (April 8, 2024)

On April 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce and TSMC Arizona signed a preliminary agreement for up to $6.6 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act. The announcement came with a major headline: TSMC confirmed the construction of a third fab in Phoenix, bringing the total investment on the site to more than $65 billion — the largest foreign direct investment in a greenfield project in U.S. history.

The first fab will produce chips using 4nm process technology, the second will use 2nm — the most advanced ever manufactured in the United States — and the third will use 2nm or more advanced processes, with production scheduled before the end of the decade. In addition to the direct funding, the agreement proposed up to $5 billion in federal loans.

For component procurement professionals, this event is strategic on two levels: it will ultimately reduce the global industry’s dependence on a single geographic cluster in Asia, and it confirms that reshoring advanced semiconductor production is no longer wishful thinking — it is literally under construction.

Source: TSMC / U.S. Department of Commerce, official press release, April 8, 2024 — pr.tsmc.com · commerce.gov

2. Nvidia Shatters Records: $26 Billion in Revenue for Q1 (May 22, 2024)

On May 22, 2024, Nvidia released its results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 (ending late April 2024). The figures left the industry speechless: $26 billion in revenue, up 262% year-over-year and 18% from the previous quarter.

The Data Center segment, the engine of this growth, reached $22.6 billion on its own — a 427% increase year-over-year. Demand for the Hopper GPU platform, used for training and inference of large language models, continued to surge. Major cloud providers accounted for roughly 45% of Nvidia’s Data Center revenue that quarter. Nvidia also announced a ten-for-one stock split, effective June 7, 2024.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, told investors: “The next industrial revolution has begun.”

For the broader electronic components industry, these results confirmed an unavoidable reality: demand for AI chips and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) was creating a two-speed market — standard components trending toward normalisation on one side, and cutting-edge semiconductors under chronic supply pressure on the other.

Source: NVIDIA Corporation, Q1 FY2025 earnings press release, May 22, 2024 — investor.nvidia.com

3. The US-China Chip War Intensifies: New Export Restrictions

Throughout Q2 2024, geopolitical pressure on semiconductor supply chains continued to mount. U.S. export controls on advanced chips destined for China — first introduced in October 2022 and expanded in October 2023 — kept evolving, with new Chinese entities added to the restricted list and tightened licensing requirements for semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

These measures aimed to limit China’s access to the most advanced AI GPUs and the lithography tools needed to produce next-generation chips. Meanwhile, China was accelerating its push for technological self-sufficiency, with companies like Huawei and SMIC making progress on increasingly advanced process nodes despite the restrictions.

For procurement teams and supply chain managers, this dynamic carries direct implications: the gradual fragmentation of the global semiconductor market into two distinct ecosystems — one aligned with the United States, the other with China — is beginning to materialise in sourcing decisions, approved vendor lists, and qualification strategies.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) — regulatory developments 2023–2024; CSIS, The Limits of Chip Export Controls, 2024 — csis.org

What This Means for Your Component Procurement

These three events point to the same conclusion: the electronic components market is normalising on the surface, but restructuring at its core. Lead times are improving for standard references — but advanced semiconductors, HBM memory, and AI chips remain under structural pressure, with geopolitics capable of closing off supply access overnight.

At ARTRONIK COMPONENTS, we monitor these developments in real time to anticipate allocation cycles before they affect our customers. It is precisely why we continue to expand our network of certified manufacturing partners — to provide qualified alternatives when markets tighten.

Comment en est-on arrivé là ?

Revenons en 2021. Des usines automobiles fermaient faute d’une puce à deux dollars. Des fabricants d’électronique grand public affrétaient des composants par avion à des coûts exorbitants. Les distributeurs annonçaient des délais en mois, et non plus en semaines. Les acheteurs doublaient et triplaient leurs commandes par pure précaution — ce qui ne faisait qu’aggraver la pénurie.

Les causes profondes ont été largement documentées : une explosion de la demande en électronique grand public pendant les confinements, un effondrement puis un rebond simultané de la production automobile, une pénurie mondiale de capacités de fabrication de plaquettes de silicium, et une cascade de perturbations logistiques — congestion portuaire, blocage du canal de Suez en 2021. Le secteur a été pris de court, et il aura fallu des années d’investissement en capital, d’extension de capacités et de douloureuses corrections de stocks pour retrouver un semblant d’équilibre.

« Après deux années de fortes contraintes, les délais de livraison dans la plupart des catégories de composants sont revenus à des niveaux globalement conformes aux normes d’avant la pandémie, avec une moyenne mondiale désormais inférieure à 14 semaines. »

— Consensus sectoriel, données distributeurs, T4 2023 / T1 2024

Ce que disent les chiffres

Les données de suivi des chaînes d’approvisionnement disponibles jusqu’au début de 2024 confirment que les délais de livraison moyens mondiaux sont revenus à environ 14 semaines — contre un pic de plus de 26 semaines enregistré au plus fort de la crise en 2022, soit une réduction de près de 50 %.

La reprise n’a cependant pas été uniforme selon les familles de produits :

Composants passifs (MLCCs, résistances, inductances) — parmi les plus touchés pendant la pénurie, ils ont enregistré les améliorations les plus spectaculaires. L’offre s’est redressée de façon substantielle, bien que la demande recommence à progresser — une dynamique à surveiller de près.

Circuits logiques et microcontrôleurs — la normalisation est également significative ; de nombreuses références standard sont désormais disponibles en stock chez les grands distributeurs, mettant fin à l’environnement d’allocation de 2021–2022.

Semi-conducteurs de puissance (MOSFETs, IGBTs, diodes) — les délais restent un peu plus tendus que dans d’autres catégories, soutenus par une demande structurelle provenant des secteurs du véhicule électrique et des énergies renouvelables.

Puces IA et calcul haute performance — ils constituent une catégorie à part : la demande des hyperscalers et des fabricants d’accélérateurs IA continue de dépasser l’offre pour les composants de pointe, et ce segment ne montre aucun signe de normalisation.

Le problème de la correction des stocks

C’est là que le tableau se nuance. La normalisation des délais s’est accompagnée d’une accumulation significative de stocks à travers toute la chaîne d’approvisionnement. Pendant les années de pénurie, les acheteurs — de façon compréhensible — ont passé des commandes bien supérieures à leurs besoins réels, pour se prémunir contre les retards et les allocations. Maintenant que l’offre a rattrapé la demande, ces commandes excédentaires se sont traduites par des entrepôts surchargés.

Les distributeurs détiennent des niveaux de stocks élevés. De nombreux fabricants OEM et sous-traitants électroniques écoulaient encore des stocks de composants dont la digestion devait prendre plusieurs trimestres supplémentaires. Cette situation de suroffre exerce une pression à la baisse sur les prix — une bonne nouvelle pour les acheteurs à court terme, mais une source de pression sur les marges pour les fabricants et distributeurs.

Le déséquilibre offre-demande est particulièrement visible dans les composants passifs, où la croissance de l’offre a dépassé la reprise de la demande depuis mi-2022. Le risque d’un nouveau cycle de tension — pas immédiatement, mais potentiellement dans les 12 à 18 prochains mois — ne peut être écarté si la demande continue d’accélérer depuis ses niveaux actuels.

Ce que cela implique pour les équipes achats

La tentation, dans un marché normalisé, est de relâcher la pression. Les délais sont gérables, les prix sont maîtrisés, les stocks sont disponibles. Mais la nature asymétrique du risque dans les chaînes d’approvisionnement plaide fermement contre la complaisance. Le chemin d’une disponibilité confortable vers une pénurie aiguë se mesure en semaines ; le retour à la normale prend des années.

Plusieurs facteurs pourraient déclencher un nouveau cycle de tension en 2024 :

Le risque géopolitique reste élevé. Les tensions entre les États-Unis et la Chine autour des exportations de technologies de semi-conducteurs, la vulnérabilité des fonderies taïwanaises, et les perturbations dans les couloirs maritimes mondiaux — notamment en mer Rouge, où les attaques houthies détournent déjà le trafic de conteneurs début 2024 — constituent des menaces bien réelles pour la continuité des approvisionnements.

L’accélération structurelle de la demande dans l’IA, le véhicule électrique et les énergies renouvelables n’est pas cyclique. Ces secteurs vont se disputer de façon croissante les semi-conducteurs de puissance, les mémoires haute vitesse et les capacités d’encapsulation avancées.

Les investissements dans la relocalisation — TSMC en Arizona, Intel en Ohio et en Allemagne, Samsung au Texas — sont bien engagés, mais ne produiront pas de capacités significatives avant 2026 au plus tôt. Le secteur reste en attendant très dépendant d’un groupe concentré de fonderies asiatiques.

Ce qu’il faut retenir

La normalisation des délais de livraison au début de 2024 est sans ambiguïté une bonne nouvelle. Pour les équipes achats, elle restaure de la flexibilité et réduit les coûts de stocks d’urgence. Pour les équipes de conception, elle rouvre l’accès à des composants qui étaient pratiquement indisponibles pendant des années.

Mais les vulnérabilités structurelles mises en évidence par la crise de 2020–2023 n’ont pas disparu. Les entreprises qui navigueront le mieux à travers la prochaine perturbation sont celles qui profitent de cette fenêtre de relative accalmie pour diversifier leur base de fournisseurs, investir dans la surveillance de l’obsolescence et nouer des relations avec des partenaires en composants fiables et certifiés — plutôt que de s’appuyer exclusivement sur le marché spot.

Chez ARTRONIK COMPONENTS, c’est précisément pour cette raison que nous continuons d’élargir notre réseau de partenaires fabricants vérifiés — pour qu’au prochain retournement de cycle, nos clients soient protégés.

Sources

• Susanne Retzlaff, IHS Markit / S&P Global — Rapports de suivi des délais de livraison de composants électroniques, 2022–2023
• Supplyframe — Component Intelligence Reports, T3–T4 2023
• ECIA (Electronic Components Industry Association) — North America Electronic Components Sales Report, T4 2023
• Bloomberg / Reuters — Couverture des perturbations de la navigation en mer Rouge, janvier–février 2024
• TSMC, Intel, Samsung — Annonces officielles sur les investissements en fonderies aux États-Unis et en Europe, 2022–2023
• Appels aux résultats des distributeurs (Avnet, Arrow, TTI) — Commentaires sur les stocks et la demande, T3–T4 2023

How We Got Here

Cast your mind back to 2021. Automotive plants were shutting down for lack of a $2 chip. Consumer electronics manufacturers were air-freighting components at eye-watering costs. Distributors were quoting lead times in months, not weeks. Buyers were doubling and tripling their orders out of pure fear, which only made the shortage worse.

The root causes were well documented: a surge in consumer electronics demand during lockdowns, a simultaneous collapse and rebound in automotive production, a global shortage of wafer fabrication capacity, and a cascade of logistics disruptions — from port congestion to the Suez Canal blockage of 2021. The industry was caught flat-footed, and it took years of capital investment, capacity expansion and painful inventory correction to find its way back.

“After two years of severe constraints, lead times across most component categories have returned to levels broadly consistent with pre-pandemic norms, with average global figures now tracking below 14 weeks.”

— Industry consensus, distributor data, Q4 2023 / Q1 2024

What the Numbers Say

Supply chain tracking data available through early 2024 confirms that global average lead times have returned to approximately 14 weeks — down from a peak of over 26 weeks recorded at the height of the crisis in 2022. This represents a reduction of nearly 50% from the crisis peak.

The recovery has not been uniform across all product families:

Passive components (MLCCs, resistors, inductors) saw some of the most dramatic lead time improvements, having been among the most severely affected during the shortage. Supply has recovered substantially, though demand is beginning to move upward again — a dynamic worth monitoring closely.

Logic ICs and microcontrollers have also seen significant normalisation, with many standard references now available from stock at major distributors, reversing the desperate allocation environment of 2021–2022.

Power semiconductors (MOSFETs, IGBTs, diodes) remain somewhat tighter than other categories, sustained by structural demand from the electric vehicle and renewable energy sectors.

AI and high-performance computing chips are in a category of their own — demand from hyperscalers and AI accelerator manufacturers continues to outstrip supply for leading-edge devices, and this segment shows no sign of normalising.

The Inventory Correction Problem

Here is where the picture becomes more nuanced. The normalisation of lead times has come hand in hand with a significant build-up of inventory across the supply chain. During the shortage years, buyers — understandably — placed orders far in excess of their actual requirements, hedging against delays and allocation. Now that supply has caught up, those excess orders have translated into bloated warehouses.

Distributors are sitting on elevated stock levels. Many OEMs and contract manufacturers are working through component inventory that will take several more quarters to digest. This oversupply situation is exerting downward pressure on prices — good news for buyers in the short term, but a source of margin pressure for manufacturers and distributors.

The supply-demand imbalance is particularly visible in passive components, where supply growth has outpaced demand recovery since mid-2022. The risk of a new tightening cycle — not immediately, but potentially within the next 12 to 18 months — cannot be dismissed if demand continues to accelerate from current levels.

What This Means for Procurement Teams

The temptation, in a normalised market, is to relax. Lead times are manageable, prices are under control, stock is available. But the asymmetric nature of supply chain risk argues strongly against complacency. The journey from comfortable availability to acute shortage can be measured in weeks, while the recovery takes years.

Several factors could trigger a new tightening cycle in 2024:

Geopolitical risk remains elevated. Tensions between the US and China over semiconductor technology exports, the vulnerability of Taiwan-based foundries, and disruptions in global shipping lanes — including the Red Sea, where Houthi attacks are already diverting container traffic in early 2024 — represent live threats to supply continuity.

Structural demand acceleration in AI, electric vehicles and renewable energy is not cyclical. These sectors will increasingly compete for power semiconductors, high-speed memory and advanced packaging capacity.

Reshoring investments — TSMC in Arizona, Intel in Ohio and Germany, Samsung in Texas — are genuinely underway but will not deliver meaningful capacity relief before 2026 at the earliest. The industry remains heavily dependent on a concentrated group of Asian foundries in the meantime.

The Strategic Takeaway

The normalisation of lead times in early 2024 is unambiguously good news. For procurement teams, it restores flexibility and reduces emergency stock costs. For designers, it reopens access to components that were essentially unavailable for years.

But the structural vulnerabilities exposed by the 2020–2023 crisis have not disappeared. The companies that will navigate the next disruption best are those that use this window of relative calm to diversify their supplier base, invest in obsolescence monitoring, and build relationships with reliable, certified component partners rather than relying solely on the spot market.

At ARTRONIK COMPONENTS, this is precisely why we continue to expand our network of vetted manufacturing partners — ensuring that when the next cycle turns, our customers are protected.

Sources

• Susanne Retzlaff, IHS Markit / S&P Global — Electronic components lead time tracking reports, 2022–2023
• Supplyframe — Component Intelligence Reports, Q3–Q4 2023
• ECIA (Electronic Components Industry Association) — North America Electronic Components Sales Report, Q4 2023
• Bloomberg / Reuters — Red Sea shipping disruption coverage, January–February 2024
• TSMC, Intel, Samsung — Official announcements on US and European fab investments, 2022–2023
• Distributor earnings calls (Avnet, Arrow, TTI) — Inventory and demand commentary, Q3–Q4 2023