Maxim IC frustration - hard to find components

[[email protected]]

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.

Did you model your laser modulator to be plug compatible with another
company's laser modulator? I'd hate to think each company had their own
standard. That would raise the price, and making money is bad.

On a data converter, I'm guessing a good wafer run yields about 10k
parts. Profit should be about a factor or 3 or 4, so break even is only
say 3000 parts. I can't see the factory turning down such an order.

BTW, I still own stock in the company and am certainly not pleased with
the performance since I know it is something easily fixed with a good
purge at the top. I can name the names of people running the show that
really have to go, not that I think it will happen. I've read the
posting on Yahoo and just laugh at how accurate they are, especially
regarding the fab.

Note: the Peter principle is not a theory, but a fact.

Maybe TI will buy the company and clean it up. It woud take very little
effort to make Maxim a money making machine again since an outside
company would get rid of the top level of management, which is 90% of
the problem.

 

[Robert Baer]

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
*doubled* my cost, and I won't be coming back any time soon, unless I
can find the parts at Digikey (I couldn't on this occasion).

Clifford Heath.

Hell, USPS Global Express Guaranteed (most expensive USPS way) is
less expensive than *that*!!

 

[Robert Baer]

USPS Global Priority is a good compromise, as it includes tracking.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

....depends on what you call "tracking".
With FedEx, one gets to see virtually every "change of hands", but
with USPS, one only gets to see some of that up to port of exit, and
nada until it gets to port of *delivery*, and no more.

 

[Mike Harrison]

...depends on what you call "tracking".
With FedEx, one gets to see virtually every "change of hands", but
with USPS, one only gets to see some of that up to port of exit, and
nada until it gets to port of *delivery*, and no more.

...but at that cost differential you could afford to lose the odd one and still be cheaper....
Tracking outside the US does vary by destinaiton country, e.g. USPS Airmail parcel sent to the UK
can be tracked all the way, although at some point the tracking number changes and you need to use
the UK Parcel Force website, it still works.

It really annoys me when US companies offer half a dozen expensive courier options to ship a few
chips that would go in a $5 USPS Global Priority flat-rate envelope.
They don't seem to realise that some people don't need, and are not prepared to pay for, a superfast
'delivery yesterday' service.

Digikey are good for higher-value orders with their free UPS UK service for >£100 orders, but if
they also did something like "Free USPS GP delivery for >£50 orders" I would used them a lot more
than I currently do.

 

[SioL]

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

John,

post your address somewhere and I bet lots of people in this NG
will be willing to help with ordering samples.

SioL

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

...depends on what you call "tracking".

Yes, I spoke a bit loosely. There is automatic *delivery confirmation*
so that the sender doesn't have the risk of with fraudulent claims of
non-receipt.

With FedEx, one gets to see virtually every "change of hands",

Very tight tracking. Every time it gets sorted, or goes up or down an
aircraft ramp it gets scanned and the info goes into the database for
almost immediate availability. By contrast, Purolator has almost as
detailed tracking but it sometimes runs behind by an hour or two,
which can be significant.

but
with USPS, one only gets to see some of that up to port of exit, and
nada until it gets to port of *delivery*, and no more.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[John Larkin]

Did you model your laser modulator to be plug compatible with another
company's laser modulator? I'd hate to think each company had their own
standard. That would raise the price, and making money is bad.

It's a rackmount chassis full of timing, gate pulse generators, PLLs,
self-test, multisection lithium niobate modulators, power supplies, a
4 gs/s arbitrary waveform generator, ethernet interface, and
distributed amplifiers... full custom.

On a data converter, I'm guessing a good wafer run yields about 10k
parts. Profit should be about a factor or 3 or 4, so break even is only
say 3000 parts. I can't see the factory turning down such an order.

They didn't turn it down. They promised 12 week delivery and didn't
deliver. They slipped it another 4 weeks. When Maxim does that, we get
scared, because additional slips often follow.

Maybe TI will buy the company and clean it up. It woud take very little
effort to make Maxim a money making machine again since an outside
company would get rid of the top level of management, which is 90% of
the problem.

I always liked Burr-Brown for their quality, integrity, and
availability of parts. I was afraid the TI would mess them up, but
they haven't. TI is deadly serious about analog, and they are doing it
right.

John

 

[John Larkin]

John,

post your address somewhere and I bet lots of people in this NG
will be willing to help with ordering samples.

SioL

If I don't hear from Rebecca, I'll do that. I can pay the going rate,
about $10 each (starving students take note!) or swap for some of the
more interesting parts we have in stock.

John

 

[PeteS]

It's a rackmount chassis full of timing, gate pulse generators, PLLs,
self-test, multisection lithium niobate modulators, power supplies, a
4 gs/s arbitrary waveform generator, ethernet interface, and
distributed amplifiers... full custom.


They didn't turn it down. They promised 12 week delivery and didn't
deliver. They slipped it another 4 weeks. When Maxim does that, we get
scared, because additional slips often follow.



I always liked Burr-Brown for their quality, integrity, and
availability of parts. I was afraid the TI would mess them up, but
they haven't. TI is deadly serious about analog, and they are doing it
right.

John

I am using a number of Burr-Brown parts (and a lot of TI parts too) in
various designs, and I'll agree TI is deadly serious about doing it
right.

Maxim should be *very* worried, because TI is second sourcing a lot of
their RS232 parts, amongst other things.
I get their weekly e-newsletter and it seems a new one or two are added
each time.

Cheers

PeteS

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Maxim should be *very* worried, because TI is second sourcing a lot of
their RS232 parts, amongst other things.
I get their weekly e-newsletter and it seems a new one or two are added
each time.

I actually designed one in a couple of weeks ago. But only because TI
had it. So maybe it could possible benefit them, but only if they can
compete with TI on price and have the parts available.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[SioL]

If I don't hear from Rebecca, I'll do that. I can pay the going rate,
about $10 each (starving students take note!) or swap for some of the
more interesting parts we have in stock.

John

I emailed my local suppliers here, its a long shot, but who knows, maybe
they have some stock.

SioL

 

[[email protected]]

It's a rackmount chassis full of timing, gate pulse generators, PLLs,
self-test, multisection lithium niobate modulators, power supplies, a
4 gs/s arbitrary waveform generator, ethernet interface, and
distributed amplifiers... full custom.


They didn't turn it down. They promised 12 week delivery and didn't
deliver. They slipped it another 4 weeks. When Maxim does that, we get
scared, because additional slips often follow.


I always liked Burr-Brown for their quality, integrity, and
availability of parts. I was afraid the TI would mess them up, but
they haven't. TI is deadly serious about analog, and they are doing it
right.

John

You can have rework on wafers or some machine needs repair, but
generally wafers won't slip 4 weeks. A run gets outright scrapped. When
it slips a few weeks, the problem is nobody is watching the product on
the backend (Packaging and test). As I've said before, these are
problems that can be fixed, but you need to remove some totally baffled
people that should have long been fired or retired. I have little
tolerance for manufacturing screw ups, assuming the design is robust.

When I do a board level design (generally for myself ;-)), I use TI
parts since I can get them from Digikey or Mouser. TI is the last big
company that has any respect for analog.

 

[Joerg]

Hello John,

They didn't turn it down. They promised 12 week delivery and didn't
deliver. They slipped it another 4 weeks. When Maxim does that, we get
scared, because additional slips often follow.

And then the next worry is whether that could be the final slip into the
land of Unobtainia.

I always liked Burr-Brown for their quality, integrity, and
availability of parts. I was afraid the TI would mess them up, but
they haven't. TI is deadly serious about analog, and they are doing it
right.

They seem to take that part of biz serious. I know an engineer who works
in what they call the Burr Brown group, cranking out new stuff. Pretty
encouraging. In the days before TI acquired them I usually shunned Burr
Brown because their pricing was often sky-high. Now it's much better.

 

[joseph2k]

I suspect that is the closest yet to their business model.

The more i read the more i think they are like Brooktree, all design and no
fab. Thus, their own difficulty in obtaining parts above sample
quantities.

 

[Robert Latest]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]
On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 13:23:41 +1000,

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.

Funny! The same thing happened to me with DHL (in Germany). I found the
$10 (10 EUR, actually) charge outrageous, so I called them and asked
about it. The nice lady on the other end just told me, without any
haggle, "dont pay it." I asked, whaddayoumean don't pay it? She said
that she had just taken the E10 off the bill and I didn't have to pay
the service fee. I asked, "So that fee is only for those customers
that don't complain?" To which she replied, "Yes, that's about it."

robert

 

[John Devereux]

I have been using the MAX7219 for ~15 years, (serial input,
multiplexed led driver). Can't seem to get rid of it.

As a former Maxim employee, I did my best to stay out of this thread.
However, the MAX7219 was one of the more "entertaining" parts I
designed. [As an analog IC designer, doing digital is nice for a
change.]

<SNIP interesting stuf>

Wow, you actually designed it? It is a great chip, which is why I
never designed it out! Unfortunately is has occasionally been hard to
get hold of. More importantly for me its price has failed to come
down, so it now looks pretty expensive on the BOM.

 

[John Devereux]

Hello John,


There are lots of display drivers, for example in the Philips PCF
series although much of it is now going towards the more popular LCD
technology.

I have not looked for a while now, but I never managed to find
anything quite right. We wanted the 64 leds per chip (and no SMT).

 

[Joerg]

Hello John,

I have not looked for a while now, but I never managed to find
anything quite right. We wanted the 64 leds per chip (and no SMT).

Non-SMT? That's going to become increasingly impossible ;-)

 

[John Devereux]

Hello John,


Non-SMT? That's going to become increasingly impossible ;-)

Yeah, these were old products... We are pretty much all SMT now for
new desigs. (And we use colour LCD displays instead of LED bar
graphs!)

But we still make some of the old stuff, and still buy the MAX7219s.

 

[Rebecca of Maxim Dallas]

Clifford,

We are able to ship via DHL, UPS, or Fed Ex, as well as many freight
forwarders. We are unable to ship via US Mail. I'm sorry you
experienced such high shipping costs. When we ship on our account
number and bill you, the cost is $50 for international shipping and
handling, and the only other costs you should be charged are duties and
taxes by your local customs. We do support methods other than DHL. If
you have problems in the future please feel free to contact me
directly. I am the only Rebecca in the group.

Thank you,
Rebecca