Part of the slow response on this thread regarding this is that it happened a couple of weeks ago.
I wonder how badly this will impact the Anthem rollout. Perhaps they have a dozens boxes of AKM DACs, but maybe not. I suspect they may be limited in producing the AVM 90 in large numbers right now.
I thought there was supposed to be a youtube video about this last night from Audioholics?
we posted this late because the initial word from AKM wasn’t all that newsworthy. When I first got word that this happened, we were told the fire wasn’t all that bad. They told manufacturers that they would have chips Available within a few months. That production would be shifted to other facilities. Sucks! But is it news worthy?
Then I was contacted by a manufacturer who told me that AKM just fessed up to how bad the damage really was. His words to me was that AKM lied initially. Bold words to use. He told me that they first corrected the event as suggesting 6 months to get back up and running. Eventually it was clarified as 12 months to begin supplying DACS, ADCS, and other related chipsets. I asked just how bad this would be. He told me that they had enough parts for a quarter and that’s it. All née product development would have to be canceled or shelved. I asked why they would cancel? Because it wouldn’t make sense to design a product based on today’s chips if that may not be what is available in a year.
so I dug a bit deeper, asked more contacts. What I found was manufacturers all telling me they had supply for about 1-2 quarters on existing products. All indicated that new products would have to be put on hold or canceled. Many expected to redesign new products around ESS Sabre DACs. Not drop in replacements. Three different companies told me that AKM told them 12 months to get up and running but 18 months to hit sufficient quantity. No word on if the DACS today are what they will make. They may choose to use these 18 months to develop a new line. It would make sense. Especially since the entire manufacturing line And specialized equipment was destroyed.
I asked an engineer friend why AKM couldn’t produce these audio related chips Elsewhere. He told me they use very special custom made precision laser trimmers. Required to achieve today’s low noise and distortion and not needed for many other chips. The only place AKM has them is this factory and so no other factory can make the chips. The laser trimmers are custom made so they can’t be quickly replaced. Worse yet, there Are still backlog and shortages of parts needed to make the laser trimmers, so the exact delay is unknown.
small manufacturers willing to be more open and honest are now reporting on their websites that they don’t expect to begin manufacturing AKM based products for 18 months. That’s bad. For most companies that Is most of an entire lifecycle.
so while some have suggested this is no big deal and old news, it’s important to understand that the news 3-4 weeks ago was wrong. I can’t say it was a lie, maybe AKM truly Didn’t know how bad it would be. Maybe it was a lie? Maybe they didn’t want to spook the industry too much. In any case, the reality Changed 2 weeks ago when AKM finally came clean and told manufacturers to:
- Expect no news chips for 12-18 months
- Begin designing new products around competitors chips
- Expect uncertainty on what chips will be available in 12-18 montbs
That is a pretty substantial shift and makes for a pretty serious problem.
we probably should have made clear that the news shifted, but we were rushing to get this out. What we were being told was pretty outlandish, that AKM had lied, and so there was a desire to simply tell the facts we know to be true.
I suspect a lot of folks don’t really grasp just how big this is. AKM is by far the largest manufacturer of and most widely used audio semiconductor company. In the pro audio world, their ADC’s are the industry standard used by nearly everyone. The TI Burrbrown chips are old and not widely used on current designs. ESS stopped making their ADC. AKM is basically it.
their DAC chips are used by most companies today as well. ESS is used by some, but on a limited number of products. The AKM is far more widely used by Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Pioneer, and others. As I understand it, an ESS chip won’t drop in because the designs are too different. It means the products using AKM will need to be substantially redesigned to use ESS. On top of that, some don’t like using ESS and feel the sound is worse.
then you have their volume chips, DSP chips, etc. Analog Devices is more widely used but AKM released new chipsets that were being built into new platforms and now won’t make it to market. The AD chips are old and problematic, as are the TI chips. Im sure the AD will remain ubiquitous because of this. I really had hoped that AKM might have forced the competition to upgrade their chips.