getting good deals on small qty?

Hello,

I am going to buy about five Spartan3 XC3S100Es along with config ROMs in the next few days. I may be ordering several hundred more parts in the coming months, but then again I may not be ordering any more. It all depends how successful the prototypes are.

I've never dealt with distributors before so the whole concept seems kind of foreign to me. I am not looking for someone to hold my hand in choosing parts or someone to help me build a working design or anything like that, I just want someone to ship me the parts I need. If only Amazon or Newegg sold FPGAs :D

Anyway I've checked the Nuhorizons, Digikey and Avnet online inventories. Only Nuhorizons has the XC3S100Es in stock, priced at 9.88 each. Since the price of these parts in big qty. is something like $2, I can't help but feel that the $9.88 price is kind of high.

Are there any alternatives to getting the parts I need without paying

400% markup? I'm not so concerned about the extra cost of the prototype parts, but more about the cost of the parts I may buy later.

Is it pretty much a reality of the business that the small volume guy gets crapped on?

Reply to
shawnn
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oh the 9.88 USD price is ok. The marketing price of 2USD is for 1 Million/year for orders shipped 2007 or something alike. For orders of

100 or 1000 dont expect much less than 9USD per piece.

In other words the 400% markup in this case is "normal" - do not expect some disti to sell you with 100% e.g. at price of 4USD, its just not possible.

Antti

Reply to
Antti

Un bel giorno snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com digitò:

Consider yourself very lucky. The main issue, especially with bigger FPGA, is that you have to buy at least 100 pieces (and wait two months for them to ship anyway). Neither Xilinx nor Altera give a crap on small enterprises that can't afford to blindly spend 10-20 k$ just to make one prototype, maybe for nothing.

I'm going to give up using FPGA for bigger projects. When I need a model that is available on digikey it's ok, but when more gates are needed, I have to look for more affordable technologies.

--
asd
Reply to
dalai lamah

Thanks for the replies Antti and Mr. lamah.

I have read some posts about "gray market" sources for chips. What / where are these sources? I already know about eBay of course.

Reply to
shawnn

The distributor is not operating a charity. Selling you 5 chips for about $ 50 is hardly a very profitable transaction, considering paperwork etc. These are not little 7/11 stores... Expecting to buy 5 chips at the million-quantity price is unrealistic. The $40 difference between a real and a completely unrealistic price is not too bad.

Now, if you complain that you cannot get the chips at all, that would be a valid complaint. $ 40 is not! Peter Alfke, Xilinx

Reply to
Peter Alfke

Thanks for the reply Peter.

As I stated earlier, I'm not so concerned about the extra cost of the prototype parts, but rather about the cost of the 100-200 parts I may buy later. $40 is obviously not worth complaining about.

Why is it that Newegg can get me the latest $300 AMD or Intel desktop processor in qty. 1 without a 400% markup over list, yet such markups are normal when buying $300 worth of FPGAs? Not a flame, I'm genuinely curious to know.

Reply to
shawnn

different price-break levels.

A 100 pcs is peanuts, no discount B 1000 pcs is peanuts, no discount C 10000 pcs order buys some discount D 500,000 order placed 14 months advance buys real nice price.

price difference C vs D is still huge.

as you are talking 10-100-1000 prices there is nothing much the disti could do. its still not much profit for them. I was surprised when SiLabs said they have flat pricing for 1 to 1000 well that is damn good price, seems that the are selling qty 1 for the price that you would expect for qty 1000,

9USD for S3e is already notsobad, if you are lucky you get some cents off that price for qty 1000 but dont expect large difference.

for 100qty almost no discount. some penny maybe.

Antti

Reply to
Antti

One thing I would complain about is being forced to buy a MOQ of 48 devices when building prototypes.

I wouldn't have any problems paying normal_1off_price * 1.5 to be able to get any quantity I want, even if this meant a longer lead time than normal.

(BTW, this is a complaint at all FPGA distributors).

Nial.

---------------------------------------------------------- Nial Stewart Developments Ltd Tel: +44 131 561 6291

42/2 Hardengreen Business Park Fax: +44 131 561 6327 Dalkeith, Midlothian EH22 3NU
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Reply to
Nial Stewart

You can get most Altera parts from Digikey or from Altera directly, which I think is basically still Digikey. I recommend you use Altera until Xilinx gets their act together with their online store. (Thanks Peter and Austin for pushing for that)

PC processors are a very different market than FPGAs. They have a different pricing structure as a result. The list prices target individual purchase. There are significant deals to be had, though, if you want to buy millions of them. Microsoft certainly didn't pay full price for all of those processors they bought from Intel for the XBox.

Newegg can offer good prices on PC processors because millions of people buy individual processors from them. That is the fundamental difference. The scale is enough that with individual purchases they can be priced pretty low. The other reason they can be priced differently is that most processors end up in a different group of peoples' hands. Most processors are consumed by people running Windows wanting to browse the web, read and write email and balance their check book. FPGAs are all targetting engineers. Since engineers tend to push the technology, FPGA vendors have a significant amount of support to provide, whereas PC processor manufacturers mostly only deal with the distributors and pre-release developers.

You can't expect this to change. It is the way it will be due to different markets. As for the minimum quantity problem, try Altera or Lattice. They both seem to be pretty good about getting the parts that you need at good prices.

-Arlen

Reply to
gallen

Nial-

Gallen offers an insightful, detailed explanation.

Or you can apply the "Mom Test" for high tech products. If your Mom knows what it is (even vaguely) and might actually have a need to buy one, then you can get qty 1 at normal price or close to it. If not, then its out of the mainstream and its cost is going to be off the chart.

-Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Brower

You might try a specialized distributor such as Mouser for smaller quantities. It is my understanding that proto quantities are their specialty, so they are setup to have stock on hand of FPGAs and a very low minimum order qty (1pc.?). If you're interested in Mouser, they do stock Lattice FPGAs:

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Hope this helps. Regards, Bart Borosky, Lattice

Reply to
bart

Let me explain one reason why distis are reluctant to break a standard tray of ICs:

Practically all ICs nowadays come in plastic packages. Plastic inevitably absorbes moisture. When plastic packages with absorbed moisture are run through a molten solder bath, the humidity vaporizes and can cause the package to crack. That's a serious problem. The standard remedy is to bake all ICs if they have been in normal air for more than 24 hrs.

You be the judge whether this is the real reason for the minimum purchase quantity requirements. Peter Alfke

Reply to
Peter Alfke

It's true that some manufacturers use wave soldering for surface-mount devices, but this isn't recommended. However, there is a similar problem with conventional surface-mount assembly.

Of course, they'd have less excuse if manufacturers offered prototype devices (presumably at a premium) in smaller trays (like 1x1). Is this rocket science?

Reply to
MikeShepherd564

Peter Alfke schrieb:

but how do you think a new project might start?

Usually we build something like 2-3 prototypes of one board and implement the design ... this is enough to demonstrate that it's working and we sell the design to someone manufacturing it ...

I'm glad that it is not my job to phone the distris and beg for chips ...

bye, Michael

Reply to
Michael Schöberl

I am still raising hell inside Xilinx to make it easier for our customers to buy parts in small volume. I have not given up, never will... Peter Alfke

Reply to
Peter Alfke

Much luck for this ...

--
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
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Reply to
Uwe Bonnes

Hi:

One more point. You can now configure the Spartan-3 FPGAs with a low cost Configurator from Atmel. Atmel offers 8-pin LAP packages for AT17Fxxx in densities upto 16 Mbit; AT17Nxxx family from Atmel is a low cost Conf. family; Check out Digikey for low quantities

Y
Reply to
Atmel_PLDs_Rock

Out of stock...

--
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
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Reply to
Uwe Bonnes

Seems things are going backwards :(

Until a few months ago you could buy Spartan 3's in 1-of qtys off the Xilinx website.. I got a prototype board back last week and went to buy the bits for it, and now I find I can't buy them from Xilinx anymore and have to go through Avnet.

They do have some "recommended for prototype" parts, unfortunately the one I want isn't one of those :(

Still I think we can use one of those parts but it was rather annoying having to stuff around getting quotes and blah blah blah whereas before it was just a simple CC transaction.

Then again it's not like this is particularly uncommon.. Usually for prototypes we try and get samples (Hello Maxim, Ti, National :) or buy from Farnell (ouch)

--
Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer
for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au
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Reply to
Daniel O'Connor

For Prototyping you probably don't use BGA packages. Look at digikey for Spartan3 parts in QFP.

Bye

--
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
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Reply to
Uwe Bonnes

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