Embedded Systems Conference priced out of reach?

Unfortunately, the AD goodwill comes with the price tag. But the worst habit of AD is the sudden increase in the price of the new products after an 'introductory' period. I have burned with that several times. You got the part designed in, and after a year of production you find out that the part is almost twice more expensive then it used to be!

LT is the expensive company also, and so is Maxim. My current preference is TI/BB and NS for their good availability and reasonable price/performance.

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

AFAIK he is in Oklahoma so he would only need bridges that are already there. Still one heck of a long drive though.

Actually I live in US since a while ago, although in Oklahoma :-) San Jose is a 6 hour flight with one change at the best case.

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

When looking at my design-in rates per company the short answer would be: They don't.

The only small one that excels is AD. Although I must, to some extent, second Vladimir's statement that sometimes the prices jump up in hindsight. Not necessarily right away but it has happened after a few years. The AD603 is a wonderful chip but it has now crept above $5 street price. So I am not designing them in anymore. It's back to ye olde discretes.

BTW Digikey is IMHO slowly deteriorating as a supplier. "Our site is currently being updated. Please retry your request in a few minutes" does kind of get old now. Guys at Digikey: Fix it or hire better IT folks. It's not rocket science to mirror a site.

I'm in a market where the electronic components are only about 10-20% of the sales price and specifications and simplicity in the design count for more than component cost. PRODUCTION volumes are a few hundred units per year, tops.

I do end up with TI/BB parts for a lot of stuff though---particularly digital logic. They are well covered by DigiKey.

Mark Borgerson

Joerg posted on Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:24:57 GMT:

"[..]

The only small one that excels is AD. [..]

Am I going to be the only one to complain that an employee in Analog Devices has said that he will do something but did not do it? The documentation on its website was excellent, but the employees of Analog Devices I have spoken to were not.

Regards, Colin Paul Gloster

There will always be employees in any company who aren't quite up to expectations. However, I found those at AD to be generally excellent. Although I must say that the quality of some recent app notes leaves much to be desired. But that is the case with most companies. When I see what comes from colleges these days it doesn't surprise me much.

This is a well known problem. Most silicon companies recognise this as do some of their distributors.

I have found that usually the tool distributors have access to dev kits and samples for most things. As they have a different model and they are not interested in how many chips you will be buying they will talk to you and supply samples.

I have no trouble getting samples for small companies.