I am more than happy to chance my mind, if provided evidence.
But solar panel prices continue to drop rapidly, and quite a few silicon-based semiconductors are still widely available at low prices.
The chip shortage is a direct result of a covid-induced demand shift. Manufacturers of cars and consumer electronics seriously mispredicted consumer demand. The resulting mass-cancellation followed by mass-ordering resulted in a demand shockwave for mature microcontrollers, which manufacturers were unable to absorb with existing stock. Due to plant shutdowns and the general multi-month production time, immediate replenishment is not possible. The resulting shortages in turn made downstream manufacturers switch from JIT to hoarding, which made the problem even worse. Microcontroller manufacturers in turn aren't able to adjust supply because fabs are really difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to build.
Nothing about this has anything to do with quartz.
We're already at a breaking point for low frequency quartz. You literally can't get it small enough for modern packages until you up the frequency. Find a 2x2mm 8Mhz part, I'll wait while you fail.
We're JUST NOW starting to get standardization on SMD oscillators in common packages, and these packages have typically pin incompatible (an enable pin instead of a two pin pierce oscillator setup) but same footprint digital alternatives about.
Maybe you read an article, but is incorrect to say we're being held up by quartz availability.
I'm surprised you even need one like that. Most modern electronics to use clock dividers or multipliers anyways, especially once your chip is small enough that you need a 2x2mm xtal. Or they just have an internal low-accuracy oscillator. In my experience one of the plentiful 4-pin 2520 or 3225 ones usually does the job, and the market has done a decent job standardizing their footprint.
