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Forum Index : Electronics : SMD chips
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| VK4AYQ Guru  Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Alasdair Sounds to me like its time to stock up on the obsolete chips while we can still see them. As you say it is easier to use when made larger, I have given up on mobile phones because the buttons are to small and they are cooking whats left of my brain. Not to mention the numbers are to small to see anyway. Its a bugger getting old but the alternate is worse as the worms tickle. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| Alasdair Regular Member  Joined: 12/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 62 |
I think if you want to get rich in about ten minutes, bring back adult human sized buttons on things. Mobile phones are for 1-3 year old fingers. I think kids are evolving hyper fingers which never actually do any real work, just fly around micro sized buttons, to hell with the rest of us old buggers who expect to just be able to use stuff and have it last more than a few months. Have you noticed calculators now usually have big buttons and displays, probably because kids never buy them, there's no need, they already know everything! Amc-elec |
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graynomad Senior Member  Joined: 21/07/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 122 |
Sparkfun used to make an 80s style land line phone with a rotary dial. I think it had a cell phone inside. I gather it was a big seller. ______ Rob Rob Gray, AKA the Graynomad, www.robgray.com |
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| Janne Senior Member Joined: 20/06/2008 Location: FinlandPosts: 121 |
I don't think you need to worry about electronics not being available in DIP and other through hole packages anytime soon. A couple of reasons to that, that I can see. First, the cheapest pcb is still the single sided one. And those single sided boards are pretty much stuck on using through hole components. The DIP package is also (still) very important in the prototyping process, so while it's certainly not the package that will sell the most, it still has it's own very important position in the chain. SMD's have been around for quite a while, and still most of the new devices are being made also in DIP... If at first you don't succeed, try again. My projects |
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| Alasdair Regular Member Joined: 12/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 62 |
I don't quite agree there, 99% of electronic manufacturing is smd based, phones, pc's, DVD players, actually I can't think of much through hole stuff at all, just power supplies in some devices, and probably because they are outsourced from the cheapest manufacturer using remnant stocks. All commercial prototyping I've seen in the last few years has been done virtual base including testing, and pcb design. Little is done by humans except for small run one offs, like I do, but ciircuit design has gone beyond time limits and mistakes and costs into the new world of cad. Some devices are still made in dil but don't ignore the fact that out of 10 million smd devices a day versus a few runs a month of dil stuff that's still available. There probably is a massive stockpile of some stuff, but how long will it last. My company manufactures an amplifier using a philips chip, every time we re- order it, at about a hundred per time, the global supply diminishes and we have been told that when it runs out, that's it, unless firm orders for thousands of devices are made, they wouldn't re tool for it. We would never order 10000 chips for our stock. That device was only released ten years ago and is sip, and redundant. Nearly all repairs are board level now, not component and a lot of semis are not even sold as spare parts at all. It's a changing world, blink and you'll miss it. Bob's got the right idea, stock up now while it's here. Amc-elec |
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