As a design engineer, I don't know that component shortages ever really go away. I've been told at every company I've worked for (just an example) not to use Maxim parts in my design, as they are always on allocation. While this is true, in most cases, if your purchasing department does a good job forcasting the need to the vendor, then there is no problem. The challenge really lies in getting an accurate forcast for the semiconductor vendors. Hence, what a lot of companies do is over-order, to prevent from having shortages. Then they carry extra inventory. Of course, in Cisco's case, I believe that the contract manufacturers typically carry this extra inventory.
So, this is nothing really new, it's a problem that persists, and probably always will. In this case, it's just that some of the vendors that manufacture optical products and RF products are kind of new to the game, and haven't been able to keep up with the demand.
Not really worth worrying about, imo.
Jay |
