First of all, I want to thank SF for it’s great contribution to this community. Since SF has had the spirit of helping others first (instead of itself), I would like to make a suggestion that will inprove the customer experience.
There has been a couple of occassions where I have stocked and developed my production prototypes on modules purchased from SF, only to find out when going to production, that the components used have been discontinued.
I don’t think its relevant to mention all the costs associated with this but, you can have an idea.
My suggestion would be for SF to post on the page, if the IC or component has already been discontinued by the manufacturer.
It would be nice, but look at it from their perspective. Digikey, Newark, etc don’t, so why should Sparkfun? If they have a slow moving component that has been in stock for a year, should it be up to them to find out if the manufacturer is end of lifeing the part? What if, as often happens, the original manufacturer obsoletes the part, but a different one starts making it?
I’ve always thought that stuff like this is the design engineer’s own due diligence along with trying to avoid single-source parts, parts frequently “on allocation,” parts with long lead times, etc. It’s up to us to find out these things, not up to the vendor to offer the information.
Actually, Mouser states that the part is obsolete. According to Phillips for example, the BGB-203 was discontinued for over a year while Digikey was not notifying online that the part was discontinued (just because they wanted to sell the old inventory).
I had spent a day chasing around the different departments at Phillips to find out that the part had been discontinued.
Is your oppiniion that if SF or Digikey has the knowledge, that you should not be informed? What about all the cost and hours associated with the design?
Although it’s true that you would get notification for discontinued items that you have already purchased, it does not however indicate in the items Page that a product has been deiscontinued.
Consider then the following scenario. You are looking at a new prototype design. You find a proper item in SF and you order it, assuming that the component is still current (and unable to verify if it is or not from DigiKey as it’s pages don’t indicate it). You move to design your circuit, schematics, PCB, software, etc. Once all this is done, you start aiming at going into production, until, you find out that can not order the product anymore…
Here is an example:
SF Part #: SEN-00252 (Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - MMA7260Q) - SF knows that it’s discontinued but, it does not mention it.
You go to Digikey and run a search on MMA7260Q and you can still order it. It does not say discontinued.
You go into Mouser and it does state discontinued.
You have to be lucky to find out that it has been dicontinued as different vendors don’t carry the same brands.
My point is, SF knows that it’s discontinued. In my opinion, it should let us know in its pages that it is, even though we can still order it.
I’m not saying it’s not a nice feature for them to have; I’m saying it’s my responsibility, so I won’t leave it up to a parts vendor.
[edit]
If I have any reason to believe that I’m prototyping with an old part, I will check the component status with the manufacturer not the vendor. Odds are the mfr can tell me that there’s a replacement part: it’s in their best interest to do so.
PHOLAN:
Actually, Mouser states that the part is obsolete. According to Phillips for example, the BGB-203 was discontinued for over a year while Digikey was not notifying online that the part was discontinued (just because they wanted to sell the old inventory).
I had spent a day chasing around the different departments at Phillips to find out that the part had been discontinued.
Is your oppiniion that if SF or Digikey has the knowledge, that you should not be informed? What about all the cost and hours associated with the design?