The Art of Electronics

[Clueless Newbie]

Hi! I printed out the posts from here, and my boss just ordered these books
for me:

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Robert Pease

The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design by Jim Williams

And he says that if I want to take some classes at the local JC he will pay
all of my expenses!

Now I have a question. He wants me to get "price and availability" for the
parts I have been using in quantities of 1000. Do I have to call each
manufacturer? Is there some sort of online store that sells all kinds of
parts and which can give me a parts list? How do you dudes go about figuring
out who has the best prices?

 

[Stefan Heinzmann]

Hi! I printed out the posts from here, and my boss just ordered these books
for me:

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Robert Pease

The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design by Jim Williams

And he says that if I want to take some classes at the local JC he will pay
all of my expenses!

Wow! Soon you will be able to drop the "clueless" from your name ;-)

Now I have a question. He wants me to get "price and availability" for the
parts I have been using in quantities of 1000. Do I have to call each
manufacturer? Is there some sort of online store that sells all kinds of
parts and which can give me a parts list? How do you dudes go about figuring
out who has the best prices?

There are catalog distributors (such as Digikey or Farnell). They're
quite useful to get a first idea, but the pricing is often too high.
Some manufacturers have price info on their website. See for example TI
(www.ti.com). Others want to be asked. Availability is a volatile thing,
as you may imagine. It has generally been good over the last years but
since the business is picking up expect shortages and extended lead
times once again. You'll need to talk to the reps for this.

 

[Winfield Hill]

Clueless Newbie wrote...

Hi! I printed out the posts from here, and my boss just ordered
these books for me:

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill
Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Robert Pease
The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design by Jim Williams

Good choices!

And he says that if I want to take some classes at the local JC
he will pay all of my expenses!

Good start.

Now I have a question. He wants me to get "price and availability"
for the parts I have been using in quantities of 1000.

Here're two good starts for that:
http://www.findchips.com/
http://www.freetradezone.com/

You'll need to signup at PartMiner / freetradezone, but the search
of distributor inventory and prices is free. Then you can click
the links to the distributor and get the detailed listing for that
part, which should include the 1000-piece level. Generally they
won't give up better prices than you see there, but perhaps if you
can get a buncha stuff from one distributor you can talk the phone
sales guy into an extra price break for the whole set "just this
once, now that your starting out and trying to impress your boss."

Thanks,
- Win

whill_at_picovolt-dot-com

 

[John Larkin]

Hi! I printed out the posts from here, and my boss just ordered these books
for me:

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Robert Pease

The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design by Jim Williams

And he says that if I want to take some classes at the local JC he will pay
all of my expenses!

Now I have a question. He wants me to get "price and availability" for the
parts I have been using in quantities of 1000. Do I have to call each
manufacturer? Is there some sort of online store that sells all kinds of
parts and which can give me a parts list? How do you dudes go about figuring
out who has the best prices?

Locate a couple of broad-line distributors (Arrow, Bell,
Hamilton/Hallmark etc in the USA), then call them and have a rep
assigned as your prime contact. Then you can look up parts on their
site, or email the rep for quotes. Expect to be flooded with
databooks, samples, eval boards, and the occasional free lunch.

Always be optimistic about potential quantities.

John

 

[Ian Stirling]

There are catalog distributors (such as Digikey or Farnell). They're
quite useful to get a first idea, but the pricing is often too high.
Some manufacturers have price info on their website. See for example TI
(www.ti.com). Others want to be asked. Availability is a volatile thing,
as you may imagine. It has generally been good over the last years but
since the business is picking up expect shortages and extended lead
times once again. You'll need to talk to the reps for this.

A general question.
A part I've been watching on the TI website, though marked as "active",
has never had a price listed, or any stock available at any distributors.
Does this basically mean that they have not had any large orders for it,
so have not actually made any?
(It's the TC253 (may have got the number wrong, it's a CCD with a
solid-state electron multiplier and the ability to relaibly see
single photoelectrons.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

A general question.
A part I've been watching on the TI website, though marked as "active",
has never had a price listed, or any stock available at any distributors.
Does this basically mean that they have not had any large orders for it,
so have not actually made any?
(It's the TC253 (may have got the number wrong, it's a CCD with a
solid-state electron multiplier and the ability to relaibly see
single photoelectrons.

Looking at this page:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tc253spd-b0.html

They appear to have about a dozen pieces in progress. Is this
primarily a military part?

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Ian Stirling]

Looking at this page:
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tc253spd-b0.html

They appear to have about a dozen pieces in progress. Is this
primarily a military part?

Oh, it's changed recently.
I've no idea, I wouldn't have thought so.

It's as sensitive to light as the best image intensified cameras, however
the size of the device means that it can only use a smaller lens, which
means it's a bit less.

I'm interested in using it to look at stars, where it's good for short
integration times, as you can use it to add frames without much noise
due to the amplification.
The part you mention is a peltier cooled version, which presumably
would be significantly more expensive than just the bare IC.

Then again, I haven't seen a price on it, and the couple of distributors
I asked were also clueless.

 

[Tim Wescott]

And then your boss will wonder why you can't get good prices in the future.

For quantities of 1000 at a time you will want to go to real distributors,
the catalog guys are great but their prices are high. Developing
relationships with distributors can be time-consuming, however, which is why
even medium-sized companies have entire departments devoted to purchasing.

Depending on your boss, and what you want to do in five years, you may just
want to call a couple of the big distributors (or use the partminer service)
and call it good -- if you do a _really_ good job of finding parts at a good
price you may end up in purchasing when your boss realizes he needs more
people to do the work at hand.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

And then your boss will wonder why you can't get good prices in the future.

For quantities of 1000 at a time you will want to go to real distributors,
the catalog guys are great but their prices are high. Developing
relationships with distributors can be time-consuming, however, which is why
even medium-sized companies have entire departments devoted to purchasing.

Depending on your boss, and what you want to do in five years, you may just
want to call a couple of the big distributors (or use the partminer service)
and call it good -- if you do a _really_ good job of finding parts at a good
price you may end up in purchasing when your boss realizes he needs more
people to do the work at hand.

I don't mind using the catalog prices for estimates, actual purchasing
should be done differently, especially if tens of thousands of dollars
or more are involved. It's sometimes worth placing an order for 6
months or a year's worth of product (with releases) if you are pretty
sure the demand will be there. The sales guy gets his big order,
you're ethically tied using them, the price you pay is fixed, and you
can get the best possible unit price at that point in time. If
shortages are looming (I don't think we're there yet, but it will
come) it can help with that too- if you have to pay "spot" price you
might have more problems.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Always be optimistic about potential quantities.

I never found this mattered much when I was at small companies, in that
saying '100' was no better than saying '10,' and you hopefully receieved a
few brownie points for being honest with the later. (These were, e.g.,
FPGAs that were hundreds of bucks a pop, so not _totally_ worthless
accounts.) I mean, I imagine that Salesguy Training 101 includes taking any
customer estimate and dropping a zero...

 

[Mac]

Hi! I printed out the posts from here, and my boss just ordered these books
for me:

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Robert Pease

The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design by Jim Williams

And he says that if I want to take some classes at the local JC he will pay
all of my expenses!

Now I have a question. He wants me to get "price and availability" for the
parts I have been using in quantities of 1000. Do I have to call each
manufacturer? Is there some sort of online store that sells all kinds of
parts and which can give me a parts list? How do you dudes go about figuring
out who has the best prices?

I am sort of assuming you are in the USA.

Various vendors have tentative pricing (sometimes called "budgetary
pricing") on their websites.

You can get honest-to-goodness quotes from distributors. The distributors
I know about are Future Electronics, and Avnet. Avnet has online budgetary
pricing, and Future may, too. You can also get prices from Digikey for
some parts. If you are serious, I would recommend actually calling
distributors, because they typically have more up-to-date information than
is on their website, and they may be able to give you a better price than
the website lists.

Finally, virtually every manufacturer has links on their page telling you
who the distributors are. You can contact those distributors with your
query. Typically they like to ask you lots of questions about what
industry you are in, what your project is called and what it is for, and
so on. I don't outright lie, but I always talk about the potential market
rather than give my best realistic estimate. The reason is that the small
company I work for doesn't typically sell in large volume, although we may
be poised to do some larger volume stuff soon.

Have fun!

Mac

 

[Winfield Hill]

Spehro Pefhany wrote...

If shortages are looming (I don't think we're there yet,
but it will come) ...

Microchip's president wrote an open letter to the community
saying despite his company's building new fabs during the
downturn, the shortages are in fact already here now. He
was warning people to change their buying expectations.

Thanks,
- Win

whill_at_picovolt-dot-com