RFC : Which electronics device vendors have the best and worst websites?

[PeteS]

I'll rate TI as 'most improved' over the last 3 years. Still has a ways
to go, but useful.

ST Micro - sucks

National - useable

Motorola derived:

ON Semi - about the same as the old Mot SPS - useable but with quirks.

Freescale - you better know what part you want before you even hit the
site.

Xilinx - See Freescale, especially if you're looking for an appnote
referenced in another document: e.g. Xapp[some number] - do a search
and it won't turn up - you'll have to list all the app notes by device
to find it.

Linear Tech - pretty good but suffers from the 'Xilinx' problem above.

Microchip. Slick, but sometimes too clever for it's own good.

Panasonic - too much javascript and flash - hard to find things

Vishay - just like the company - bloated and no-one knows what product
should be listed where. Badly needs a x-ref back to the original
companies (as that's what we often know the parts as).

AMP - not bad as connector companies go
Molex : ditto

I'll leave the rest of the starting positions to others

Cheers

PeteS

 

[PeteS]

A few more

Philips : unresponsive javascript everywhere. Great content if you can
wait for it.

Broadcom : You need an NDA before you can even find out what they make.
Website (sans NDA login) reads more like a press release.

Coilcraft. Very easy to navigate. registration required for samples a
separate matter.

Cooper-coiltronics (part of Bussman). Hard to find something based on
loose parametrics. OK for standard products.

Murata : pretty easy to use. Sometimes difficult to find specialist
parts. Menus don't match products very well.

Intel. We make Pentiums. Finding anything else (especially older stuff)
is difficult.

Micron. An example of how it should be done, even though they use
javascript extensively. Easy to use, good links.

General Semi. Looks like it was designed in 1990 and has yet to be
updated.

Cheers

PeteS

 

[Joerg]

Hello Pete,

Philips : unresponsive javascript everywhere. Great content if you can
wait for it.

Plus the wait for the stupid stock quote. I don't want to buy their
stock anyhow. They do not seem to understand what packet latency is and
how that affects their overseas customers. Or in some cases the
customers they could have had. But I guess after them having auctioned
off their semi biz this is all water under the bridge now.

General Semi. Looks like it was designed in 1990 and has yet to be
updated.

This is actually a blessing because 90's style web sites are among the
fastest. 80's style are even better. The best ever IMHO was Sabre when
it was still strictly ASCII based. Today I find and book all flights
online but it has never been as easy and fast as Sabre was able to do that.

BTW I don't quite agree with the TI site being "improved". It's worse
than before, often goes down here in the west and I hate waiting for
pictures like that kid in front of a big TV and all this non-essential
fluff.

 

[PeteS]

Hello Pete,


Plus the wait for the stupid stock quote. I don't want to buy their
stock anyhow. They do not seem to understand what packet latency is and
how that affects their overseas customers. Or in some cases the
customers they could have had. But I guess after them having auctioned
off their semi biz this is all water under the bridge now.


This is actually a blessing because 90's style web sites are among the
fastest. 80's style are even better. The best ever IMHO was Sabre when
it was still strictly ASCII based. Today I find and book all flights
online but it has never been as easy and fast as Sabre was able to do that.

BTW I don't quite agree with the TI site being "improved". It's worse
than before, often goes down here in the west and I hate waiting for
pictures like that kid in front of a big TV and all this non-essential
fluff.

I will confess to detesting the over-use of flash and javascript -
slows everything down for no good purpose. If a vendor requires java,
they don't get my business.

TI has improved, but I certainly agree they've reduced that impact with
the fluff.

Cheers

PeteS

 

[Ancient_Hacker]

Don't get me started.

Some general notes:

(1) I can't speak for everybody, but as a techie, I'm not very
intersted in seeing 1280 x 944 pictures of some cute female of
indeterminate ethnicity smiling at a handful of your products. How's
about you strike a deal with www.hotbabes.com: you won't put up front
pages with 70% skin, and they won't diffuse any silicon wafers.

(2) We really could not care any less how your company is organized.
If you're organized as "Sales", "mature products", "Neewer products",
"old products", do NOT put up those as choices. We usually don't know
and dion't care whether you consider the 2N6112 new, old, or mature.
We just want to see the specsheet, availability, and prices.

(2.5) Similarly if your op-amp group is organized into twelve different
sub-groups. WE DONT CARE. We just want to find an op-amp. Don't make
us try to guess whether you consider a LF356 "MOS", "Bi-CMOS",
"HIGH-SPEED", "LASER-TRIMMED", or "burnt-orange package".

(3) We should not have to drill more than 2 levels deep to find
anything.

(4) We should be able to tell if we're making progress toward our
goal. For instance, on the HP site, you can click for minutes or more
and loop back to where you were, and never get down to the page you
want.

(5) Please, please let us do a parametric search. And make it
somewhat useful. So many parametric searches are self-contradictory
and non-sensical. And maybe outsource some bodies in India to
proofread the tables? Waaay too many op-amps are listed with offset
currents in amps instead of picoamps.

(6) It's no longer 1985 when Internet Explorer took exponential time
to render a table with more than 15 lines in it. At least give us the
option of looking at 200 op-amps on one bleepin page.

(7) Don't be coy. Dont' make us drill down 6 levels, register at your
site, view several flash animations, before you tell us you havent made
any of this IC in the last 5 years, and we have to order 50,000 minimum
and wait 16 weeks. (Maxim and a few others, take note).

(8) Try a really simple test. Try using Google to find something on
your site. If Google is better at searching your site than your
internal search feature, think what this means. (HP, and others, you
know who you are).

(9) Tiny inscrutable icons are, inscrutable. Maybe you think it's
cute to have a purple squiggle mean "only available in Cucamonga". The
rest of us dont.

(10) If you've gone to the trouble to scan or otherwise put up a
datasheet, splurge and use at least one square inch of screen space to
put up a large button labeled in at least 18 point bold font "VIEW
DATASHEET". Maybe come up with an industry standard for this, so we
don't go crosseyed reading the whole bleepin page trying to find what
to click on to see then dang thing.

Whew!

 

[Luhan]

I'll rate TI as 'most improved' over the last 3 years. Still has a ways
to go, but useful.

ST Micro - sucks

National - useable

Motorola derived:

ON Semi - about the same as the old Mot SPS - useable but with quirks.

Freescale - you better know what part you want before you even hit the
site.

Xilinx - See Freescale, especially if you're looking for an appnote
referenced in another document: e.g. Xapp[some number] - do a search
and it won't turn up - you'll have to list all the app notes by device
to find it.

Linear Tech - pretty good but suffers from the 'Xilinx' problem above.

Microchip. Slick, but sometimes too clever for it's own good.

Panasonic - too much javascript and flash - hard to find things

Vishay - just like the company - bloated and no-one knows what product
should be listed where. Badly needs a x-ref back to the original
companies (as that's what we often know the parts as).

AMP - not bad as connector companies go
Molex : ditto

I'll leave the rest of the starting positions to others

Cheers

PeteS

I go to DigiKey first - they do a good parametric search. Then I take
their link to the vendor's sight or just grab the datasheet.

Or, I do a Google search for the part designation plus 'pdf'.

Luhan

 

[Luhan]

I'll rate TI as 'most improved' over the last 3 years. Still has a ways
to go, but useful.

ST Micro - sucks

National - useable

Motorola derived:

ON Semi - about the same as the old Mot SPS - useable but with quirks.

Freescale - you better know what part you want before you even hit the
site.

Xilinx - See Freescale, especially if you're looking for an appnote
referenced in another document: e.g. Xapp[some number] - do a search
and it won't turn up - you'll have to list all the app notes by device
to find it.

Linear Tech - pretty good but suffers from the 'Xilinx' problem above.

Microchip. Slick, but sometimes too clever for it's own good.

Panasonic - too much javascript and flash - hard to find things

Vishay - just like the company - bloated and no-one knows what product
should be listed where. Badly needs a x-ref back to the original
companies (as that's what we often know the parts as).

AMP - not bad as connector companies go
Molex : ditto

I'll leave the rest of the starting positions to others

Cheers

PeteS

I go to DigiKey first - they do a good parametric search. Then I take
their link to the vendor's sight or just grab the datasheet.

Or, I do a Google search for the part designation plus 'pdf'.

Luhan

Once I find the part I want, I try Mouser and Jameco for the best
price...

Luhan

 

[martin griffith]

Hello Pete,

Philips have sold their semi side.............


martin

 

[Joerg]

Hello Luhan,

I go to DigiKey first - they do a good parametric search. Then I take
their link to the vendor's sight or just grab the datasheet.

That's what I also increasingly do. Digikey delivers datasheets faster
than almost any of the manufacturer's site. The result? I mostly spec in
what Digikey has in stock and the clients order the whole chebang right
there at Digikey. After that it's up to the purchasing agents but by
then the BOM will be almost cast in stone.

Hey, EU manufacturers, are you listening?

 

[martin griffith]

Don't get me started.

Some general notes:

(1) I can't speak for everybody, but as a techie, I'm not very
intersted in seeing 1280 x 944 pictures of some cute female of
indeterminate ethnicity smiling at a handful of your products. How's
about you strike a deal with www.hotbabes.com: you won't put up front
pages with 70% skin, and they won't diffuse any silicon wafers.

(2) We really could not care any less how your company is organized.
If you're organized as "Sales", "mature products", "Neewer products",
"old products", do NOT put up those as choices. We usually don't know
and dion't care whether you consider the 2N6112 new, old, or mature.
We just want to see the specsheet, availability, and prices.

(2.5) Similarly if your op-amp group is organized into twelve different
sub-groups. WE DONT CARE. We just want to find an op-amp. Don't make
us try to guess whether you consider a LF356 "MOS", "Bi-CMOS",
"HIGH-SPEED", "LASER-TRIMMED", or "burnt-orange package".

(3) We should not have to drill more than 2 levels deep to find
anything.

(4) We should be able to tell if we're making progress toward our
goal. For instance, on the HP site, you can click for minutes or more
and loop back to where you were, and never get down to the page you
want.

(5) Please, please let us do a parametric search. And make it
somewhat useful. So many parametric searches are self-contradictory
and non-sensical. And maybe outsource some bodies in India to
proofread the tables? Waaay too many op-amps are listed with offset
currents in amps instead of picoamps.

(6) It's no longer 1985 when Internet Explorer took exponential time
to render a table with more than 15 lines in it. At least give us the
option of looking at 200 op-amps on one bleepin page.

(7) Don't be coy. Dont' make us drill down 6 levels, register at your
site, view several flash animations, before you tell us you havent made
any of this IC in the last 5 years, and we have to order 50,000 minimum
and wait 16 weeks. (Maxim and a few others, take note).

(8) Try a really simple test. Try using Google to find something on
your site. If Google is better at searching your site than your
internal search feature, think what this means. (HP, and others, you
know who you are).

(9) Tiny inscrutable icons are, inscrutable. Maybe you think it's
cute to have a purple squiggle mean "only available in Cucamonga". The
rest of us dont.

(10) If you've gone to the trouble to scan or otherwise put up a
datasheet, splurge and use at least one square inch of screen space to
put up a large button labeled in at least 18 point bold font "VIEW
DATASHEET". Maybe come up with an industry standard for this, so we
don't go crosseyed reading the whole bleepin page trying to find what
to click on to see then dang thing.

Whew!

Well Said,
just too add:

Get Sample now:
Get Pricing now:
Who Has Stock Now:

Even
"Skype a human" Now:


martin

 

[neil]

<snip technical stuff>
I looked at the Clarks Shoes site the other night.
Very artistic, but made me dizzy, and found it very difficult
to find things. So confused I had to send a "grumpy old man"
email to them. Received a polite reply to say they usually
have positive feedback. Went to the Schuh site and found
stuff very easily and bought there.
cheers,
Neil

 

[John Larkin]

I'll rate TI as 'most improved' over the last 3 years. Still has a ways
to go, but useful.

ST Micro - sucks

National - useable

Motorola derived:

ON Semi - about the same as the old Mot SPS - useable but with quirks.

Freescale - you better know what part you want before you even hit the
site.

Xilinx - See Freescale, especially if you're looking for an appnote
referenced in another document: e.g. Xapp[some number] - do a search
and it won't turn up - you'll have to list all the app notes by device
to find it.

Linear Tech - pretty good but suffers from the 'Xilinx' problem above.

Microchip. Slick, but sometimes too clever for it's own good.

Panasonic - too much javascript and flash - hard to find things

Vishay - just like the company - bloated and no-one knows what product
should be listed where. Badly needs a x-ref back to the original
companies (as that's what we often know the parts as).

AMP - not bad as connector companies go
Molex : ditto

I'll leave the rest of the starting positions to others

Cheers

PeteS

Intersil is all Flash. I suppose they don't want to be bothered by
customers.

And I really hate the sites that just give you a long list of pdf
datasheets without a clue as to which one might be the thing you can
use.

John

 

[Ancient_Hacker]

Hello Luhan,

Well, Digikey does have an okay parametric search, except:

(1) Usually the monst important parameter to me, at least for
transistors, the voltage rating, is the last box, always off screen to
the right.

(2) Their "flavor" box is mostly misleading and contradicting.
Example for transistors, the choices are like "NPN", "PNP", "NPN/PNP",
"Audio NPN", "General purpose NPN", "NPN-plus-resistor", "Darlington
NPN". Think of all the overlaps there.

(3) When doing a prototype I don't care about items that are either
not in stock or quantity 1000 minimum. Likewise when specing for a
production run, I don't care to see the high prices for quantity one.
How's about an option to choose up fron which to surpress?

(4) I suspect few buyers care at first if the case style is gray
TO-220 or dark gray TO-220. How about a simpler package list where we
don't have to click on 17 items just to select the generic TO-220
style? Same with smd and to-92

 

[PeteS]

I'll rate TI as 'most improved' over the last 3 years. Still has a ways
to go, but useful.

ST Micro - sucks

National - useable

Motorola derived:

ON Semi - about the same as the old Mot SPS - useable but with quirks.

Freescale - you better know what part you want before you even hit the
site.

Xilinx - See Freescale, especially if you're looking for an appnote
referenced in another document: e.g. Xapp[some number] - do a search
and it won't turn up - you'll have to list all the app notes by device
to find it.

Linear Tech - pretty good but suffers from the 'Xilinx' problem above.

Microchip. Slick, but sometimes too clever for it's own good.

Panasonic - too much javascript and flash - hard to find things

Vishay - just like the company - bloated and no-one knows what product
should be listed where. Badly needs a x-ref back to the original
companies (as that's what we often know the parts as).

AMP - not bad as connector companies go
Molex : ditto

I'll leave the rest of the starting positions to others

Cheers

PeteS

Intersil is all Flash. I suppose they don't want to be bothered by
customers.

Which is a shame. Intersil was a true leader in low power - indeed at
one time they _defined_ low power.

Although I started this thread from a comment by Joerg for fun, I fully
intend to point my vendors at it (maybe others will !) to educate them
into what we (who actually decide what gets designed in) want to see,
and what we _dont_ want to see.

Cheers

PeteS

 

[JeffM]

[10-point plan (more or less)]
Whew!

Whew, indeed. Let's hear it for George!
Maybe some good employees read Usenet
and will cut & paste that post into an email to their bosses.
....and it couldn't hurt to include Pete's posts as a guided tour.

The obvious question is
"Isn't there a Design Review Board for these things?"

As far as I know, there is a massive void
where there should be a Web page entitled
"What to Do Before Paying Your Web Developer".
Y'know--stuff like a W3C compliance check,
having some customers actually try the site....
....and you'd think they'd want to get the folks they are trying to SELL
to
involved earlier.

 

[John Woodgate]

Well Said,
just too add:

Get Sample now:
Get Pricing now:
Who Has Stock Now:

You want the DESPAIR routine:

Data and
Engineering Samples
Price and Availability
Information Request

 

[PeteS]

Philips have sold their semi side.............

Yep - but you still (today I checked) hit a Philips site. Maybe the new
owners will make it better (not holding my breath, though)

Cheers

PeteS

 

[PeteS]

[10-point plan (more or less)]
Whew!

Whew, indeed. Let's hear it for George!
Maybe some good employees read Usenet
and will cut & paste that post into an email to their bosses.
...and it couldn't hurt to include Pete's posts as a guided tour.

The obvious question is
"Isn't there a Design Review Board for these things?"

As far as I know, there is a massive void
where there should be a Web page entitled
"What to Do Before Paying Your Web Developer".
Y'know--stuff like a W3C compliance check,
having some customers actually try the site....
...and you'd think they'd want to get the folks they are trying to SELL
to
involved earlier.

Perhaps a simple 'Engineers want information they can use, not pretty
pictures of your latest $(product vision)' might help them.

Cheers

PeteS

 

[Joerg]

Well, Digikey does have an okay parametric search, except:

(1) Usually the monst important parameter to me, at least for
transistors, the voltage rating, is the last box, always off screen to
the right.

That's a common problem, also with mfgs. They all seem to assume that we
have those DVD player boxes with the wide screens.

(2) Their "flavor" box is mostly misleading and contradicting.
Example for transistors, the choices are like "NPN", "PNP", "NPN/PNP",
"Audio NPN", "General purpose NPN", "NPN-plus-resistor", "Darlington
NPN". Think of all the overlaps there.

True. Same as that "pick your market sector" nonsense that some semi
mfgs place in front of the meat.

(3) When doing a prototype I don't care about items that are either
not in stock or quantity 1000 minimum. ...

I do care, big time. If something isn't in stock I check with other
distributors. If it ain't there either the red flag goes up. That is
typically a sign of significant procurement troubles down the road and I
don't want to leave that kind of aftertaste with the purchasing agents
of my clients.

(4) I suspect few buyers care at first if the case style is gray
TO-220 or dark gray TO-220. How about a simpler package list where we
don't have to click on 17 items just to select the generic TO-220
style? Same with smd and to-92

Once I ordered chips and they came in purple packages. Yech...

 

[martin griffith]

Yep - but you still (today I checked) hit a Philips site. Maybe the new
owners will make it better (not holding my breath, though)

Maybe they should have just sold the website.......


martin