Well, essentially down. They are revamping it and it looks like this was such a big job they just can't continue with business while they do work on installing it. Even orders by phone is down until Wednesday.
I wanted to dig for some info on getting started with their Smartfusion2 Kickstart board and there is nothing there. All you can get to is the (new) main page.
-- Rick
Yeah, I got an email from them, apparently they shot the entire company down for a week! Wow, not many outfits do stuff like that. I guess they are doing internal training while the changover is done in their systems.
Avnet is SO SLOW, anyway, maybe few people will notice. I order something from Digi-Key and select FedEx ground, and I have it in 2 days. If I order an in-stock item from Avnet, it can take TWO WEEKS to get it.
Jon
I ordered two items from Avnet, one in stock, one 3 weeks delay, and had that confirmed after the ordering process.
Two days later I checked on the website, and the "in stock" item now had a *4* *month* delay. So did my entire order. Took a lot of work on my part to get that delayed item deleted from the order, and there was *zero confirmation* of that change until after the remaining part arrived.
Avnet = distress order, for me at least.
Yes, pretty much the same, here. There are really only about 2 things I order from them. They are one of only two stocking distributors for Xilinx, and I have this problem that if I order small quantities of Xilinx chips from Digi-Key, they put them in strips of tape, 5 chips long. Really screws up the feeding into my pick and place machine. This is even if I order 25 or sometimes 50 chips and add a note "do NOT cut tapes". Avnet ALWAYS gives me waffle trays of chips. My solution is to buy from Digi-Key and then put the chips into waffle trays thak I keep for that purpose.
The other thing is Avago encoders. Digi-Key stocks a fair variety of them, but not all the combinations of size and resolution. Avnet has all the combinations available, but maybe not all in stock.
So, yes, I'd buy from somwhere else first, but nice to know they are there in case I need something. The whole industry (in the US) is in a big mess, and I'm always scrambling to work around discontinued parts or parts with insane lead times. 3-4 months is no longer too unusual.
I did have a funny experience many years ago with a Burr-Brown DAC (4 channel 8-bit DAC in one package). Somebody (AD?) bought them, and the part had a 2 YEAR lead time, and price went up to $50! A quick search turned up a TI part that seemed to be a pin-compatible copy, for $4 each. I bought some, expecting it not to work, but it worked just fine!
Jon
Burr Brewn was bought by TI in 2000.
Dan
Right, it must have just been AD with the 2 year lead time, and then I found TI had the second source for 1/10th the price, and available right now.
Jon
That's odd. I complained once when I ordered cut tape and got a whole bunch of sections of 10 pieces each. They said next time just tell them I wanted it in one strip and they would do that. But now they have Digi-reels, so maybe that is what you need to do. Costs and extra $7 per reel last time I checked, but if you need it for the machine...
My board uses an AKM CODEC that is made in large quantities, but can have long lead times. My customer orders sporadically so I don't inventory any parts. Of course they want a reasonable lead time. The AKM part was reported at 14 weeks and I complained. The AKM sales person met with me and bragged that their lead time was 14 weeks! What? My lead time is supposed to be 12 weeks and I need to put them on boards and get them tested! Since then we've had less problem so maybe they realized 14 weeks is not so good. I'm no big fish, so likely nothing I do really has an impact. I think when you are using 10,000 a month you might get their attention.
Did Burr-Brown hear about it? Now they are the same company of course.
-- Rick
It is now Thursday and there are still parts of the site that are not up. Various links only reach the main Avnet page rather than the intended page. Oh well. I guess I can wait a few more weeks.
-- Rick
It is now Wednesday of the following week and there are still parts of the site that are not up. I am looking for the various downloads to go with a board I bought (that is shipped with no disk). The page where you can order the board is now up, but no link to the info. The old description page is still up, but the link for the download doesn't work.
I contacted someone who sent me a link for a copy of the files that were supposed to have been made available. But I can't access the download without a login and I think it is the wrong files anyway. They sent a link for the files for a different board.
This is starting to piss me off.
-- Rick
I've finally heard back from an FAE with Avnet and he is looking into how he can get the files to me. I don't know what they did to their web site, but I believe they have gone to a system where the pages are generated on the fly or something and the many pages of static info have simply not been entered into the data base so there isn't anything to display.
The real irony is that on the main web page, the one that comes up every time you try to access one of the old links, if you scroll down a bit they have an promotion for this board! I guess you can buy it, just don't try to access any of the supporting files.
-- Rick
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