Maxim IC frustration - hard to find components

I bet the 'user friendliness' only stretches as far as telling you '26 weeks delivery' or 'minimum order 2500'.

Paul Burke

Can you use MAX5201 parts?

It was an issue.

Then the problem seems to be that design engineers do not think the same way he does. Usually that isn't a good thing. Most of us never design in a sole-sourced part unless there is no other alternative. Usually there is.

channel

are

ASP... "Asking Sales Price"?

Michael

Average Selling Price.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hello Spehro,

Which somehow pre-supposes that there is enough stuff to sell...

In message , dated Fri,

Exactly; this is a symptom of unenlightened marketing. These days, uniqueness is NOT a positive USP (Unique Selling Point; this is more general than the other 'U' things, because it covers not only the product specification but the terms on which it is offered). The classic case is perhaps a lower-noise version of a jelly-bean op-amp at the normal going price. Most specifiers will opt for that as their first choice, since it 'costs nothing'. But it doesn't *earn nothing* as a result.

So they want a high ASP on large orders only (and 26 week lead times so they are guaranteed to have sold it before they make it) - max ASP, large volumes only (so they minimise production cost per unit and don't have it sitting waiting for the guy with a 200 - 1000 order requirement). All mfrs run large volumes, of course, to minimise the cost per unit at production, but they don't wait until they have an order for it, at least for the area Maxim is in.

No wonder the stock is 'not doing really well' - other mfrs are willing to keep that stock around for the '200-1000' (or the 500 next month,

Standard Maxim technique (in my experience) from the last at least 15 years. I personally wonder how much longer they can survive with this attitude.

Cheers

PeteS

They also seem to keep some of their parts out of distribution entirely. So they make more money at the expense of the reliability of supply to their customers.

John

No, I use the external Vref, at a goofy voltage, and it doesn't look like I can overpower the internal ref. But I could use the 5204, which just has different reset behavior from the 5205. I guess I'll ask for some samples of them, too.

If anybody can score some 5204's or 5205's for me, I'll pay for them.

John

Paul,

I would be happy to personally handle any requirements you have for Maxim or Dallas parts. Biased as I may be, we do care very much about our customers and their needs. Please give me a chance to prove you wrong.

Sincerely,

Rebecca

Paul Burke wrote:

Hello Rebecca,

Well, here would be your perfect chance: How about getting John Larkin (here in this thread) some MAX5205?

Funny!

John, are you the owner of Highland Technology?

Michael

I'm a bottom of the food chain dude here, no way as qualified as joerg /john/etc. I doubt if I would use maxim, unless its for a max232, either, just had too many problems on small quantity.

single source ...furgeddit

martin

Well, 65% of it.

John

afaict from the datasheets 5205 has an ref voltage of 4 to 5V and 1x gain, 5201 has fixed internal reference of 2.5V but has a 2x gain, so output is 0 to 5V, so the output range can't be far that off? What reference is your reference? can't you just hack the software to compensate for the different reference?

-Lasse

John,

As regards to the MAX5205 availability, I suppose you have considered parts brokers, or do issues of provenance prohibit this?

A search at

It's not pretty, but we've needed to aquire parts from the brokers when the distributers were broken...

-Scott

If I got that desperate, I might. We'd have to hack the boards, too, to disconnect the bussed Vref and maybe also bypass the internal refs. My current full-scale is something like 3.6 volts. Looks like we can just enlist an army of friends to get a few samples each; Maxim won't ship us parts, but they always have lots of samples in stock. Strange that they value potential customers more than real ones.

John

Then you should consider supporting normal US post for we international customers. When I ordered the first bunch of IButtons and SMPS chips so I could test my application (a scoring system for orienteering), the order came to about $US200 IIRC. Then I had to pay $50 for you to pick and pack them(!), $48 for DHL to deliver them, $AU46 for them to put them through the non-required (but DHL's policy) customs check, and $10 for the privilege of DHL paying the customs check user-pays bill.

Your non-support of any method of international shipment other than DHL

Clifford Heath.