Anyone have any mileage with Skyworks Solutions? It's a new name, and they seem to have good stuff, but I don't want to design in a part that's going to be orphaned:
Input on the right, output on the left? What sort of mad people are they?
Cheers
Chinese designers? I don't care where the inputs and outputs are -- I want to know if I'll be redesigning the board in a year or two.
I can only say positive things about Skyworks. When I needed an RF part for a design they insisted on sending free samples and coming to my office. So their rep came, brought samples, was very knowledgeable, answered all my questions and turned out to be a fellow mountain biker which instantly builds a rapport here :-)
The only other companies that showed this high level of support lately were Linear Technology and Wuerth.
The TI part that I found cost over 4 times as much and was in a much more difficult package (for me). $1.29 vs. $0.30, and the Skyworks part is available in a SOT23-6.
Curious product for them, I thought they made high-falootin' MMICs and diodes and stuff.
They seem to be good enough that JL uses them, at least the RF parts? If you want production, I might suggest a TI part instead; they're usually pretty good on that. I think they have a similar part available too.
Tim
-- Seven Transistor Labs Electrical Engineering Consultation Website:
I use their schottky diodes (down to 0.25 pF!), around 40,000 so far, and they have been fine. They did obsolete one part on us, a SOD323 diode, which was a minor nuisance. I'd try to have a second source available before I design in their stuff. In the case of the SOD323, we now use an Infineon part.
They have a nice little sample kit full of varicap, pin, and schottky diodes, really handy to have around.
I think Skyworks absorbed the old Alpha operation.
Consumer-electronics RF parts seem to get EOL'd a lot, as the consumer market changes I guess. Discrete things tend to get integrated.
TI/National, Linear, ADI, Avago seem to keep things in production.
National has a few nice charge pumps.
Skyworks used to be Alpha Semiconductor. They've been around for yonks.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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This Wurth (I'm umlaut-less)?
Regarding technical capabilities I am not a real fan. Their inductors and stuff are top notch but when it comes to really tough challenges such as super-small inductors there are better alternatives.
Their parts are OK. Two sales guys showed up one day. One tried to sell me their book "Trilogy of Inductors" while the other one rolled his eyes. I bought the book and read it, and really sympathize with the eye-rolling.
They gave me a 'free' sample kit of transformers with the book, I think I would have paid slightly more for the kit without the book...
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
They have another book, about digital logic. Why would an inductor company publish that? Too much eye rolling can be dangerous to your vision.
"The 0011 Of Digital Logic" ?
I'm always a little suspicious when a charge pump requires 10uF at the input. When you design these things, you go insane over PSRR so that you don't need a lot of input capacitance.
The "apps" department tends to jack up the value of input capacitance to reduce phone calls if the part is touchy.
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