Worst data sheets?

Look at the bright side: At least you can get to their datasheets. NXP has excellent datasheets but they wrecked their web site so badly that I and lots of others can't get there anymore, except when there is an outside link such as via Digikey. It's been several weeks (!) now and they still haven't figured out how to fix it so it can be seen in all browsers.

But the really nasty part is *finding* the datasheets. The web site is useless for searching for parts if you don't know the part number already.

I'd really use more of their parts if their info wasn't so awful.

John

That is part of the reason I just did a "design out" of one of the Philips micros. NXP supposedly had an updated version but I couldn't get the datasheet so we switched to Atmel.

I'm kind of tired of entering passwords for every Broadcom datasheet, and then reading them with the giant diagonal watermark.

My personal favorite is some of the datasheets from International Rectifier. For some reason, they prefer to put the pinout information for their TO-style FET's in a separate document, so you can end up reading the entire datasheet and still not have this very basic (and absolutely essential!) information. Plus, it's not always obvious that the separate packaging datasheet even exists. And why have 2 documents anyway? What purpose could this possibly serve anyone? How many extra electronic bits would it take to put the pinout info in the PDF??

Of course, it also helps if you have at least some idea of what you're reading in the datasheet. I remember in college that it took me (at least!) a month to figure out how a 4-quadrant multiplier actually worked!! I was 100% convinced the datasheet was crap... Now I look back at that and laugh.

-mpm

FWIW, I'm not impressed with NXP datasheets either. Particularly the LPC programming guide.

By now I believe they have a serious upper management problem at hand. What baffles me is that the investor group that bought Philips Semi appears to be blissfully unaware of what's going on. Or I shall say of what's not going on anymore.

You mean that the Philips situation has gotten *worse*? Is that possible?

John

I'll third Tyco's/Amp's bad web site and data sheets which usually are missing a dimension or two. Of course, I find that most connector data sheets are missing dimensions.

I'm finding that the National Semiconductor web site is really hard to scan for prospective parts. It has the feeling of Wired magazine - lots to look at and hard to find anything. You need to know what you're looking for ahead of time.

"Write-Only Memory"; "cooled by...a six-foot fan 1/2" from the package"; a special price curve for *Slow Pay Customers*.

Bob Pease is priceless.

Sad, actually. This was once a thriving and innovative company. And it was the one that made the experimenter kit that nudged me into engineering. I just don't understand how an investor group can buy a large chunk of a company, then this kind of stuff happens and there seem to be no consequences. Makes absolutely no sense to me.

They also managed to degrade their site, a lot. Which means that my order of search now goes like this:

ON-Semi, if they don't have it then TI, if they don't have it then National, maybe.

Minicircuits is worse in that respect. There, the pinout is a different file, the graphs is a different datasheet and multiple rather similar components also have different datasheets. When I have excess time at hand I tend to download a bunch of their datasheets and assemble them into combo-data sheets. Their documents are not protected and thus allow that.

Rene

I'm sure I've had a time with Tyco's. Cannon connector, I mean ITT Cannon, sold off some of their stuff to somebody else. I have problems with the joining, or buying of companies. It usually means trouble. I think I had so much trouble getting info from PEI-Genisis, I dealt with a third party instead. When I deal with getting a power supply fixed or parts, I call Thermo-Fisher, and have to know what division is responsible for that supply, I can't just look under power supply.

The thing that gripes me the most is contact info. I need to get a phone # or address so I click contact info, usually NOT.

greg

Heh, the perfect opportunity to post a blunder I spotted.

Evidently, Maxim has a nonlinear-sweep oscilloscope:

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

If the datasheet isn't on this page it probably isn't on the site:

And Motorola bet the farm on cell phones. HP sold off all its legacy. Strange.

John

Don't count on the datasheets too much. They occasionally change vendors and then you get completely different parts under the same part number. They have wrecked the ERA series of mmics *yet again*

John

Sounds like an intentional corporate characteristic to me.