Any Maxim discussion Forum Members?

Well, I have used tons of TI chips in my designs and zero from Maxim. Sure, their designers are great but what good does that do if a first order of 10k+ qties hits the brick wall? I have seen that happen many, many times. Sorry, just my humble opinion, I see some serious management issues there. Same for many European semiconductor companies. Except that it's much worse there, they often can't procure samples even if you hold a credit card under their noses.

It takes more than one to tango. A good designer in the valley alone isn't enough. The business side of things needs to be handled, too.

--
Regards, Joerg

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You can make soup with miso, but miso is good for a lot of other things, like broiled miso scallops, or miso marinated chicken.

John

[snip]

I'll have to look that up. I only know "miso" from RA ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

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I like TI. I like LTC too. Again, if you were getting the high speed op amps and such, they were probably not the stuff designed in California.

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I don't know if you are still reading the thread about getting 5V linear beast of a supply, but Excess Solutions has 4 or 5. I think they were 5V, 25A, for $20. Freakin' heavy. I shot some cameraphone photos.

IIRC their high-speed amps were designed in Arizona. Thing is, they work great and most of all you can buy large quantities without too many worries about a non-stock situation.

--
Regards, Joerg

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Thanks, but we already bought one. Will be hacked and modded to 3.3V this week. I'll bring some big I-sense resistors to the client. And a Christmas-Stollen for desert :-)

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Regards, Joerg

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Nah, MISO is from the SPI bus. Master input - slave output. Every time I design a module with SPI on there I get the urge to drop in at our favorite Japanese restaurant. Miso soup comes standard with just about everything there.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Same here ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

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Yes, I recall you found them. I just thought it was funny that they didn't have the big ass power supplies on their website. I was relatively sure I saw them there when I suggested they were a good soruce for heavy iron.. I wonder if I should snag one for future use since big linears are getting rare, other than the stuff they sell for ham radio.

Depends on what you need. I gave some huge linears away and took others apart because I didn't need one in years. They take up a lot of room just sitting there. Then, of course, a client ended up needing one. But it's only for the prototype. Later for production I am going to design a nice and quiet switcher for that client.

--
Regards, Joerg

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When I designed the gadget in question, there were several drop-in parts. This is an SO-8, single, differential output, ballpark 1 ns ECL comparator. All the other sources dropped out, leaving me with Maxim as the sole source.

Their MAX9690 was being fabbed outside, by a house in Minnesota or something. They had some fab issue, a charge migration problem on a pinch resistor or some such. Parts would fail at high temperature, and the fail temp declined over time, a year or so, eventually hitting room temp. Heat annealing would fix them, for a few months.

I heard that a major defense contractor uses millions of these gadgets, so I assume the 9690-to-9691 redesign, with the clamp diodes, didn't bother their biggest user. It sure bothered us.

We use the Analog Devices ECL comparators for new stuff.

John

See other posts. They were sort-of-replacements for other Maxim parts that were failing in the field. Of course, the whole fiasco cost us many, many times the price of the parts themselves.

MAX9691 is still in production, but we bought enough extra stock for longterm repairs, and won't use it in new production.

John

Except for THS3062!

John

I don't really like current feedback amps, seen too much grief.

The THS4021 is nice, it's been good to me and you aren't restricted to miniscule supply voltages. Of course, for large volume production I do a discrete design because I just can't bring myself to forking $2-$3 of the BOM budget over to one single opamp.

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Yes, rotten DC performance; we use them for their outrageous slew rates.

We pay biggish bucks - $4 or $5 - for the faster opamps, but they are key to our spec-sheet claims. It's hard to do a discrete amp at a GHz GBW and multiple v/ns slew, much less when you have to put dozens on a pc board.

TI has about the only really fast opamps that will run from +-12 or

+-15 supplies.

John

Ok, you guys don't really do mass production but more high-end gear. Sometimes I get to enjoy doing that as well, when designing medical equipment that has a Porsche price tag.

That has always surprised me.

--
Regards, Joerg

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