TekLager lead times

Last update: 2022-12-07

The chip shortages we experienced in 2021 and early 2022 are largely over. Higher prices are the new norm - hopefully over time prices will start going down again. 

The information below is for historical reasons. Router are now generally available - see stock status on product pages.

Chip shortages and increased prices

Due to an extended shortage of Intel i210at and i211at NIC chips used in most routers, many products are out of stock with long lead times. The lead time for new intel NIC orders is quoted at around 52 weeks. As a result, most hardware manufacturers struggle to procure NIC chips, and the factories are not producing new motherboards.

Major chip foundries like TSMC are running at 100% capacity, leading to escalating lead times. The pandemic has disrupted global logistics, which further slows down everything. This affects the whole industry, not just Intel. For example, Qualcomm does not take new orders for the chipset used on wle600vx / wle900vx at this time. We are fortunate to have some stock left of WiFi adapters.

The market price for 256Mx8 DRAM chips is currently about the same as for 512Mx8 DRAM. This makes the manufacturing of APU2E0 configurations rather pointless. We won't have 2GB APU motherboards until the situation changes.
512Mx8 DRAM chip prices seem to have stabilized at about twice last year's price - effectively, the cost of the motherboards this year is significantly higher than the previous year. 

Grey market for intel chips

There's some limited availability of the Intel i211at and i210at chips from the second-hand, grey market. We are procuring as many as we can at prices that make sense.

Intel i210at chips are unreasonably expensive, so we won't be buying them. The cost to consumer of APU2E4 with 3 intel i210at chips would be about 2x of last year, so this does not make sense. Instead, we have some limited availability of APU2E5 with intel i211at chips. More expensive than last year, but still acceptable.

Use different NIC chips or different manufacturers?

Manufacturers we are working with are redesigning motherboards to use different NIC chips such intel i225 or Realtek RTL8111. Design, prototyping, testing, and certification is taking time.

We have tested and rejected several hardware alternatives due to stability problems, NIC performance issues, BIOS problems, or low-quality manufacturing. We prefer to have no stock rather than sell hardware we are not happy with ourselves. 

Backorder queues

Customers who signed up to the backorder queues via email have priority to purchase new stock. We receive deliveries every few weeks, but most stock gets sold before it reaches the website. Queue time ranges from 1-2 weeks to 2-3 months, depending on the model.