Updates on future supply of Teensy 3.2/3.5/3.6 and/or alternatives?

jfung

Member
Are there any updates on the future availability of the Teensy 3.x models, which I understand are constrained by the availability of the core Kinetis processors? According to the PJRC website, Teensy 3.2 isn't expected to be available before March, and Teensy 3.6 before June. While the 3.5 was briefly available in November, they appear to be out of stock again now.

Unlike the Teensy 4.x boards, the 3.x models have >10 bit ADCs and onboard DACs. These specific features make the Teensy 3.x models particularly useful for pedagogical and instrumentation applications in undergraduate physics teaching laboratories (my area of interest). Is the availability of the Teensy 3.x boards expected to improve in the coming months? If supply issues are expected to persist for an extended period, or if NXP decides to discontinue production of the relevant chips altogether, is there any plan to introduce alternative models with similar capabilities? Thanks very much.
 
Does an update that an update is coming soon still count as an update?

I asked again just this morning (first business day of 2023) and the word is NXP is soon to complete another cycle of the quarterly planning process. Supposedly we'll hear an update next week. I have no idea if that will be Monday or Friday next week, but I wouldn't be surprised if we get no new info until later this month. I'm sure somebody within NXP will know by next week, but it'll probably take a week or two for that info to reach us.

Hopefully the news will be better. The prior news had about 25% of the MK20 chip we ordered in 2021 coming around April-May 2023, another ~20% much later in 2023, and all the rest delayed until at least 2024. Even worse on MK66, just a tiny amount in July 2023, all the rest delayed until at least 2024. Situation is really unclear on MK64. A tiny amount might come in March-April, but the info is inconsistent and might just be a mistake, but all the rest are pretty clearly delayed until at least 2024.

But again, this is old info. We're theoretically supposed to hear an update next week, and I'm pretty sure that info will actually come sometime later this month. Hopefully it will be better news....
 
But again, this is old info. We're theoretically supposed to hear an update next week, and I'm pretty sure that info will actually come sometime later this month. Hopefully it will be better news....
I tend to think the Teensy 3.2, 3.5, 3.6 and maybe LC just won't recover. Yes, PJRC will get bits and pieces, but it doesn't sound like they will get enough to reliably offer products that people can depend on ordering quantities of boards.

For example, over at the Adafruit forum, I still see people posting about Uncanny Eyes that was published in 2015. There are other uses that pop up, such as the OP.

And recently Lady Ada said Adafruit were moving away from the Teensy 3.6 for their testers to an ESP chip (at the time, the Teensy 3.6 was one of the few microprocessors that had USB host support, and it had a large number of pins).
 
If there isn't good news by the end of this month, yeah, would have to agree. Going to give it until Jan 31 before updating the web pages with latest news.
 
PaulStoffregen said:
But again, this is old info. We're theoretically supposed to hear an update next week, and I'm pretty sure that info will actually come sometime later this month. Hopefully it will be better news....

Just woke up and reading this update after a rough day yesterday. Hopefully the news will be a lot better coming out of NXP!!!. Hopefully they will feel there is enough of a backlog or people complaining that they will decide that its in their interest to ramp up production. All can do is keep fingers crossed and pray.
 
Just want to +1 my interest on an update for this topic as well. We've finally ran out of MK20DX chips and are hopeful for good news coming from NXP this year. Switching chips for existing designs is not an option so we can only hope for the best + churn out new products using different processors. Thanks and appreciate the updates!
 
NXP is a victim of its own success in the car market. It makes over half its money there (billions) but it can't meet supply despite locking in over $4billion fab access last year.
It is an interesting puzzle. It may make sense to switch to a supplier who doesn't have a priority customer that results in short-changing of lower volume customers.

It might be possible to encourage an upstart RISC V supplier to configure products close to the pin counts and features of Teensy's.
Teensy 4.x is still well ahead of everything
but there are quite a few choices for many applications for teensy 3.x
If you don't need floating point, for example, the M5Stamp C3U covers a lot of ground.
 
I still believe that the shipping delays on electronic components are not directly related to the pandemic, or even the world econimies. I recall reading an article about a few manufacturers of IC's were closing down to upgrade their factories to handle 2nm technology. Just as they started upgrading all this other mumbo jumbo started happening which added to the delay. I can't find the article, but doing a search for "chip manufacturer upgrading to 2nm technology" I get results stating 2025 will be when most major companies will be in production. the Wikipedeia article on "2 nm process" says 2024 will begin production and mass production in 2025.

I think this upgrade and has a major role in the shortages everyone is experiancing. Not many suppliers are saying too much because they were given notice for several years in advance and they did not stock up as they should have to meet demand during the factory down times for the upgrades.
 
Now that we're into February, is there any updated information (one way or the other) from NXP regarding the future availability of the MK20, MK64, and/or MK66 chips? Thanks very much.
 
I just got an update from Element14 that my outstanding orders for about 5k MK20DX chips (since April 2021) is scheduled to arrive July this year. It has been delayed multiple times before though, not getting my hopes up for this one.
 
I updated the Teensy LC, 3.2, 3.5, 3.6 pages last week.

We've been hearing 2 sets of info. The info with specific delivery dates looks pretty bad. Less than half chips we ordered in early 2021 are scheduled to arrive in 2023. The rest are already pushed out to 2024. See each page for the best info we have regarding the chips specifically for that board.

The unspecific info if that improvements are likely "soon". But we've been hearing that story for the last year.

Some chips for Teensy 3.5 did unexpectedly appear late in 2022. My guess is we'll probably see more of this as NXP starts shipping orders meant for customers who've already redesigned their products to use a different chip, and then the distributors start looking for anyone else to buy them.

Supply of chips for Teensy 4.0 and 4.1 has been quite good recently. They're arriving in large batches rather than a steady flow. For example, a large number of chips for Teensy 4.0 arrived just a few weeks ago. We were just recently on the verge of running out when Teensy 4.0 built with these new chips started rolling out of production last week.

If you can switch from Teensy LC / 3.2 to Teensy 4.0, or from Teensy 3.5 / 3.6 to Teensy 4.1, please do so. NXP really is making the newer chips. I can't promise we'll always keep them in stock, but supply is looking so much better on Teensy 4.x.
 
This is what the supply of Teensies 3 and 4 looks like in my part of the world - has been like that for months....
https://www.robotics.org.za/development-boards/teensy-boards?sort=p.price&order=DESC
Screenshot 2023-02-21 at 13-34-42 Teensy-boards.jpg
 
Back
Top