ICNAV In-depth Column

Original analysis written by the ICNAV editorial team: market trends, selection guides, technology explainers and sourcing notes. Each article shows its publication and update date.

Articles

• Ordering Through a Shortage: Four Negotiable Variables Behind Lead Time

  Market & cycle · 2026-10-21

  Lead time is not fate but the outcome of four negotiable variables: volume commitment, price mechanism, delivery cadence and alternates. Early in a shortage, contract prices hold while spot moves first.

• Silicon or SiC: Where the Break-Even Line for Power Devices Actually Sits

  Explainers · 2026-10-10

  The SiC case cannot be made on unit price alone; switching loss, thermal volume, whether the drive and protection chain must be redesigned, and second sources set where the line falls.

• In SoC Selection, the Ecosystem Decides Before the Compute Does

  Trends · 2026-09-30

  Peak compute describes a moment; shipping on schedule depends on toolchains, BSPs, driver patches and long-term supply, and each SoC segment is blocked by a different one.

• Controllers, Dies and Modules: Three Roles Inside the Embedded Storage Supply Chain

  Selection guides · 2026-09-23

  Inside one UFS device, controller vendors, die makers and module houses each own a different segment; knowing which decides performance, endurance and long-term supply beats comparing capacity and interface speed.

• How Far Domestic MCU Substitution Has Actually Got: Share, Category and Verification Cost

  Trends · 2026-09-17

  Share alone can't describe substitution progress; look at the easiest categories, the genuinely hard automotive ones, and the hidden wall of verification hours.

• Reps, Catalogs and In-House Stock: How Risk Is Distributed Across Three Channel Models

  Sourcing & channels · 2026-09-10

  The three channel models differ less on price than on who owns the sourcing chain, lot traceability, technical support and long-term supply.

• The Unglamorous Parts of a Signal Chain: Between the Sensor and the ADC

  Explainers · 2026-09-04

  System-level accuracy is often decided by op-amps, references and isolators rather than the main processor — here is how to split the chain and rank the risk.

• Why Code Storage Survived: The Niche Logic Behind NOR Flash

  Trends · 2026-08-28

  3D NAND crushed cost per bit, yet NOR never got squeezed out — because code storage rewards reliability, random execution and long supply, not density.

• Second Sources That Work: A Verification Order You Can Actually Run

  Sourcing & channels · 2026-08-22

  "Alternate available" in a BOM has no binding power. Rank parts by position, then verify parametrics, footprint, software, samples, pilot runs and supply commitments in order.

• What "Automotive Grade" Actually Promises: Certification, Defect Rates and Ten-Year Supply

  Explainers · 2026-08-17

  Automotive grade is not a temperature rating; it is a contract-like bundle of defect accountability, change notices and long-term supply — which is exactly why swapping parts is expensive.

• Choosing an MCU: Four Things Beyond Core and Clock Speed That Set Your Schedule

  Selection guides · 2026-08-11

  Comparing MCUs as spec sheets is how schedules slip; toolchain, peripherals, lifecycle commitments and second sources decide the real timeline.

• Reading a Price Panel: Contract, Spot and Die Prices Point at Three Different Things

  Market & cycle · 2026-08-05

  Contract, spot and die prices for the same DDR5 can differ several times over and move in opposite directions — they measure different things.

How these articles are built

We read company filings, product pages and public industry data, then rewrite the findings against the vendor, product-line and channel records curated in this directory. Aggregated news is kept separate at /news.html.