Leadtimes for only 11 of 41 electronic components tracked by Purchasing magazine stretched in July from the month before. Twenty-eight component delivery times shrunk and two remained the same. In June leadtimes for 34 components stretched.

Among the components that had some of the largest leadtime declines were 16 Mb DRAM, 256 kilobit SRAM, bipolor logic and thyristors. Delivery times for 16 Mb DRAMs fell from 7.1 weeks in June to 4.8 weeks in July. Leadtimes for 256 Kb SRAMs shrunk from 9.2 weeks to 6.0 weeks. Bipolar logic wait times dropped from 8.1 to 5.6 weeks and leadtimes for thyristors declined from 8.0 to 5.7 weeks.

While leadtimes for 11 components stretched, the length of the longer delivery times was small. For instance 64 Mb DRAM leadtimes stretched from 6.3 to 6.9 weeks; nickel cadmium batteries delivery times moved out from 5.4 to 6.0 weeks and general purpose relays delivery times increased from 4.6 to 5.6 weeks.

Buyers should expect leadtimes for many components to begin stretching because production of equipment usually picks up in the third quarter for the holiday selling season.

The good news is that stretching of leadtimes won't last until there is sustained demand. So far, much of the demand for components has been seasonal and short term.

**This story is based on data collected monthly from buyers by Purchasing magazine. The data (leadtimes, business strategies, pricing) is available for sale in the product catalogues at http://www.purchasingdata.com.