Somehow that does not surprise me with this company. The sad part is
that it was Philips that brought me into electronics. My parents got me
an EE20 experimenters kit for Christmas when I was a kid. While in
Europe their semi part were made and distributed by Valvo in Hamburg.
They became part of Philips and the support was absolutely top notch.
Back then I would not have dreamed that this could deteriorate so far
and so fast.
Same with Siemens BTW. After it became Infineon it went downhill IMHO,
and fast.
Plenty of examples how to do it right: Analog Devices, National, TI, and
on and on. Hey Europe: Wake up!
Amen!
Yep. But they fail to realize that today's small players are tomorrow's
big guys.
Yes!
The other thing they fail to see is that consultants often
design complete mass products.
Yes!
I just got off the phone with a very nice guy at NXP. Actually it was very
hard to get him /on/ the phone in the first place. All I need are some
jellybean parts that are sold only by the 3000pc-reel by European
distributors. So I wanted some samples. As I'm working at the University in
Hamburg, the first number I tried was the Hamburg sales office. Tried 5
times and never even got a ringtone. Next was Frankfurt. Got someone on the
phone, but whenever she tried to get me through to someone we were
disconnected (I tried this 3 times, each time got a different switchboard
person who failed in the same manner). OK, Munich. Very friendly people
told me that the person in charge for people "like me" (academics) was on
vacation but back next week.
So I talked to him. He's going to get me samples, no problem. I asked him
why the standard distributors aren't carrying these parts in small
quantity, and why getting sample was so hard. Boy did I open up a can of
worms. Essentially he told me all that you wrote in this post, including
naming American mfgrs that are doing it the right way. I asked him how NXP
expected to get designed-in when it was so hard to get your hand on their
products. He said he didn't know. I asked him to maybe raise the point with
someone in charge. He said he'd long stopped doing that. I said that the
people making $$$ purchase decisions were at one point little engineers,
scientists or hobbyists. He said he knew. Since we had agreed on pretty
much everything it seemed we might as well end the conversation, which we
did.
If they don't support them then their
parts will never make it in. Once a design decision has been made it's
done and done. Next to impossible to get in after the ECO. I've had
sales guys close to bursting into tears after they found that out the
hard way.
I'd love seeing that happen to someone at NXP or INfineon.
If they can't even figure that out they should at least sell through
Digikey. But for large ranges of EU semiconductors that's not happening.
Hence no design-wins.
The stuff that I want is actually in stock at DigiKey. Nothing exotic. But
ordering at DK from a German government office is a big hassle because they
don't have a German sales office. The easiest method is going through my
private credit card and getting reimbursed after a lot of red-taping.
Besides, DK is generally more expensive than European distributors so it
doesn't make sense to place a large order which, among some DK-only parts,
contains stuff that could have been purchased locally.
Well, I always wanted to try out their BF862 and the PMBFJ620 dual (hoping
to replace those expensive TO78 parts). The 620's datasheet is complete
crap of course. Just a few "typical values" curves that look like someone
had jotted them down in a few seconds using log-log paper and a ruler. And
nothing, not even a hint, as to what kind of matching I might expect. But
cheap (if you want a 3000 reel).
I remember when Jan Timmer slammed the pulpit. He really had a fit about
the financials. I wrote to him with some ideas and so did others but he
didn't listen.
I can give you the extension of someone in Munich who is good at listening
;-)
--Daniel
