Fast rise time?

[John Larkin]

Is that Gigabit Logic, or some descendant? We were using their parts
back in 1988 and the prices were much the same back then. ECLinPS is a
lot cheaper and easier to get hold of, and almost as fast.

No, GBL died a decade ago or so. I tossed their databook years ago...
pity, it is a collector's item now. I think they never got usable
yield on their GaAs logic.

GigaComm (sorry, not gigalogic) is OnSemi's ecl/cml single-gate stuff.


http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/productList.do?id=262


We use the NBSG16VS in one of our products. We're paying $35 a gate,
and it's available from Digikey, according to our stock report. Not
only does it output clean 40 ps edges, you can vary the amplitude of
the output swing clear down to zero. I think this is SiGe stuff.

John

 

[John Larkin]

Your experience is a little unspecific. Mine was - as I posted - that
we got about 500psec for 10% to 90% transition times with 5GHz parts.

I haven't done much better with the 40 GHz Infineon SiGe parts,
driving them from < 100 ps edges. I can get a 5-volt, 100 ps edge from
a phemt without a huge hassle. Hittite makes a nice 18 GHz distributed
amplifier, for about $200 a chip.

So who is your favourite broad-line distributor? Farnell owns Newark,
and you can get their range in the USA even if your own tame
distributor doesn't stock them.

We use a lot of distributors.. Pioneer, Hamilton/Hallmark, Future,
Arrow, Avnet, Mouser, Digikey, Nu-Horizons, tons of them. Newark and
Allied occasionally, but not too much for some reason. We seem to buy
direct a lot lately, too.

John

 

[Joerg]

Hello John,

Yeah, I like that part... it makes a good current-mode NIM driver, and
it's fast but not so fast that it screams too much. But a 40 GHz
transistor isn't 20x as fast as a 2 GHz one. Gaasfets and especially
phemts are really fast.

Yes. But usually I try to find a high volume device, something that is
used in either satellite tuners or cell phone gear.

We use some GigaLogic parts. A NOR gate costs $35.

Makes me drool, wish I could use that once in a while. The total BOM
budget for many of my designs is a fraction of that. OTOH that makes for
some interesting challenges and I kind of like those.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Spehro,

You'll want to download it anyway, the version on the CD is not as
new. Interesting that mine was marked "Made in Germany". Two solder
bridges between pins on the large MSP controller chip. 8-(

Newer versions may not always be the best. When I received the JTAG
programmer last year I found that the new stuff locked up on it. Neither
IAR nor TI had an answer. So, I went back to a 2004 edition of IAR and
had a smooth ride ever since.

I really doubt that the circuit boards were made in Germany. Well,
maybe, if fully automated. The MSP430 series was actually conceived in
Germany, by the TI group around Lutz Bierl in Freising. That's in
Bavaria, or Hefeweizen Country.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Jim,

My God, you too? I've got an original Eico tube dip meter and one of the
Heathkit tunnel dippers. Still use the Heath; was going to convert the Eico
to solid state and life got in the way.

Mine is not a tunnel dipper but the HD-1250 which uses a FET oscillator.
From a friend I later got a McGraw Edison "Megacycle Meter", a tube dip
meter. It doesn't have all the coils though.

Then there is the old Eico tube multimeter which I still use sometimes.
The main reason is that even the most severe EMI leaves this meter
completely unfazed. Same for the accidental HV pulse into the input. One
day the aluminum needle decided it had enough. It simply transformed
itself into a pile of dust. Now it has a needle cut from a straw, blue
for better visibility. After rebalancing the meter acts much faster than
before, very handy at times.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Bill,

Your experience is a little unspecific. Mine was - as I posted - that
we got about 500psec for 10% to 90% transition times with 5GHz parts.

That corroborates my slope of a little under a nsec with a BFS17A.

I know about the Infineon parts, but I'm less sure about being able to
buy them - if Farnell stocked them I could have been reasonably
confident that they were readily available

There is a serious problem with many EU parts. When you need small qties
for a prototype run we often cannot buy them in the US. You spend hours
on the phone and come up dry, so I tend to design them in only when I
absolutely have to. Many of the big EU semi manufacturers provide
excellent R&D but suffer from serious marketing problems. However, they
do not seem to see or understand that. Or to say it more arrogantly if
they gave me the chance to run the show for a couple years their sales
would take off, big time. I'd take the majority of my pay in stock
options

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Hello Spehro,

Newer versions may not always be the best. When I received the JTAG
programmer last year I found that the new stuff locked up on it. Neither
IAR nor TI had an answer. So, I went back to a 2004 edition of IAR and
had a smooth ride ever since.

The newest version (by 1 increment) IAR works well for me. M*croch*p
has had missteps with released IDEs suffering from problems, so I
don't upgrade that unless it's necessary and the s/w has been out for
a month or so.

I really doubt that the circuit boards were made in Germany. Well,
maybe, if fully automated.

So do I. I've heard that Europe and Japan have fairly lax legal
requirements for such markings. It looks more like a US-designed or
possibly European-designed product, made in China. The schematics are
kinda hybrids with resistors shown as Euro style boxes, but with the
date in US MM/DD/YYYY format.

The MSP430 series was actually conceived in
Germany, by the TI group around Lutz Bierl in Freising. That's in
Bavaria, or Hefeweizen Country.

Ah, author of "Das große MSP430 Praxisbuch". Interesting.



Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Joerg]

Hello Spehro,

Ah, author of "Das große MSP430 Praxisbuch". Interesting.

Yes. Maybe I am going to buy that book when someone comes for a visit or
I am over there. The publishing house (Franzis) brings up lots of
memories. I used to buy almost all their little project books when I was
a kid. Still have them although they won't do anyone any good over here.

That, and a Philips EE20 experimenter's kit is what got me interested in
engineering.

 

[John Larkin]

You'll want to download it anyway, the version on the CD is not as
new. Interesting that mine was marked "Made in Germany". Two solder
bridges between pins on the large MSP controller chip. 8-(

Well, at least it's a lead-free short.

Get used to it.

John

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Well, at least it's a lead-free short.

Get used to it.

John

Shorts in the same place on another unit. Maybe it's a design feature
that just looks bad (like dull lead-free solder joints look bad).


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[[email protected]]

Hello Bill,


That corroborates my slope of a little under a nsec with a BFS17A.


There is a serious problem with many EU parts. When you need small qties
for a prototype run we often cannot buy them in the US. You spend hours
on the phone and come up dry, so I tend to design them in only when I
absolutely have to. Many of the big EU semi manufacturers provide
excellent R&D but suffer from serious marketing problems. However, they
do not seem to see or understand that. Or to say it more arrogantly if
they gave me the chance to run the show for a couple years their sales
would take off, big time. I'd take the majority of my pay in stock
options

That was why I emphasised that the transistors I mentioned were all
availalbe from Farnell.

You can buy anything they stock in the U.S. via Newark, in respectably
small quantities - one or more for eveything mentioned, except the
BSF17A where you have to buy five or more ($4 worth).

 

[Joerg]

Hello Bill,

That was why I emphasised that the transistors I mentioned were all
availalbe from Farnell.

Been there, tried that, didn't work. Case in point was a BSP297 last
year. None in stock, Infineon didn't come through with any samples, my
client ended up having to buy a reel just for a few prototypes. Luckily
we were at least able to find that reel somewhere.

You can buy anything they stock in the U.S. via Newark, in respectably
small quantities - one or more for eveything mentioned, except the
BSF17A where you have to buy five or more ($4 worth).

39 cents (US) at Digikey, single qty

If you buy a reel it's about 9 cents.

 

[John Larkin]

Hello Bill,


Been there, tried that, didn't work. Case in point was a BSP297 last
year. None in stock, Infineon didn't come through with any samples, my
client ended up having to buy a reel just for a few prototypes. Luckily
we were at least able to find that reel somewhere.



39 cents (US) at Digikey, single qty

If you buy a reel it's about 9 cents.

Newark's search engine is a mess, but it looks to me like all the
BSF17's are "special order" products with leadtimes in months.

John

 

[[email protected]]

Joerg wrote:


That was why I emphasised that the transistors I mentioned were all
availalbe from Farnell.

You can buy anything they stock in the U.S. via Newark, in respectably
small quantities - one or more for eveything mentioned, except the
BSF17A where you have to buy five or more ($4 worth).

I wish that were true. Farnell's site shows a Phycomp 47M 5% 0805
resistor, Farnell #9236473 for £0.099. The line includes a number of
much higher values too--handy for transimpedance amps, picoamps, and
such. Newark, alas, has no such thing.

Best,
James Arthur

 

[Joerg]

Hello John,

Newark's search engine is a mess, but it looks to me like all the
BSF17's are "special order" products with leadtimes in months.

Yes, 216 days. Oh man. That's why I usually start with Digikey. They had
them in stock yesterday, today their server flaked out. Mouser has 1681
of them in stock as well. But I always keep a tube of them in the lab
anyway.

 

[John Larkin]

I wish that were true. Farnell's site shows a Phycomp 47M 5% 0805
resistor, Farnell #9236473 for £0.099. The line includes a number of
much higher values too--handy for transimpedance amps, picoamps, and
such. Newark, alas, has no such thing.

Best,
James Arthur

Newark HasNone.

John

 

[[email protected]]

Newark HasNone.

John

Snarff !

James

 

[[email protected]]

Try contacting them. As far as I know, the deal in the U.S. is the
mirror images of the deal in Europe, where we can get anything that
Newark stocks in around seven to ten days.

It gets added to their next regular trans-Atlantic shipment ... and you
can buy in the same minimum quantities.

When Farnell first took over Newark, Win Hill postively revellled in
getting access to Farnell's estensive range of resistors. It's ten
years ago now ...

 

[[email protected]]

Newark HasNone.

Try

http://export.farnell.com/jsp/home/...ome/exportHome.jsp.104_A&_DAV=en_EX_DIRECTEXP

Instead of going for Newark I went for Farnell In One Export and
clicked on the US. website, giving me the URL above.

There I could find the 9GHz BFR540 ex stock for less than a dollar.

I suspect this is what you would - in fact - be accessing via Newark's
"special order" option, and that you'd get your parts faster than the
19 days that New seems to stick on their "special orders".

I also found the Phycomp 47M 5% 0805 resistor

 

[[email protected]]

Try

http://export.farnell.com/jsp/home/...ome/exportHome.jsp.104_A&_DAV=en_EX_DIRECTEXP

Instead of going for Newark I went for Farnell In One Export and
clicked on the US. website, giving me the URL above.

There I could find the 9GHz BFR540 ex stock for less than a dollar.

I suspect this is what you would - in fact - be accessing via Newark's
"special order" option, and that you'd get your parts faster than the
19 days that New seems to stick on their "special orders".

I also found the Phycomp 47M 5% 0805 resistor

Hey, thanks Bill !

James