1 Jan
2006
1 Jan
'06
11:19 a.m.
Yes...at least in part because they tend to need a
pile of other
things, like capacitors and inductors, which are difficult to stick
onto ICs. I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with using several
dozen transistors on a chip die instead of a couple of transistors and
a half-dozen miscellanous discrete passives.
Anyone that has even a shred of experience on a factory floor would take
the more complex IC, maybe even more pricey, over even a small pile of
discretes, SMT or thruhole.
There is MUCH MORE to good engineering than what goes on the schematic or
breadboard. In fact, production issues are often more important than the
circuit itself. What are these production issues? Things as obvious as the
extra work the board stuffers have to do and extra inventory/warehousing
costs, to increased failures from QA errors to increased health costs for
the workers. These issues can kill even the best design, if not handled
properly.
I am curious - who has experience with hardware production issues on this
list? The real, walkin' the factory floor, experience? I suspect that it
is very thin.
William Donzelli
USR Integration/QA
aw288 at osfn.org