Jerry, this is a really nice and thought-inducing response. A wonderful example of suggesting to a user how they can arrive at a solution to their needs. (It's the give a fish/teach to fish concept at its best.) Thanks for your support of the TechNet, and we look forward to your continued sage advice in the coming year. We wish you all the best for this Holiday season, and a wonderful and prosperous New Year. Jack Jack Crawford, IPC Project Manger - Assembly 2215 Sanders Road, Northbrook IL 60062-6135 [log in to unmask] http://www.ipc.org 847-509-9700 x 393 fax 847-509-9798 >>> Jerry Cupples <[log in to unmask]> 12/22/97 02:32PM >>> <snip-questions about cost comparisons of through-hole vs SMT components> It being near Christmas, I should be nice and offer plenty of kind and helpful responses to your posted requests. BUT, at this time of year, my own feelings (production support and management) are more like those of E. Scrooge - trying to make the quarter, ship those boards, tote that bale, and the d---d ISO auditor will be here in early January. I'm already paddling my "boat" as fast as I can, so "Humbug" is the real sentiment here, be warned. You guys need to look for yourself first, then ask for help. Your requests didn't sound very moving - much too general. What kinds of parts? logic, RAM, microprocessor, PLD? Where did you look? Or did you just ask the world a week or so back and not get a complete free answer via electronic auto-response? Here are some suggestions. Make a list of the parts to buy/use based on what you are designing or are already using. Strip it down to a list of your most popular 30 part numbers, and list by generic part type (i.e. 74FCT244, 74ALS244, 74HCT244, 74LCX244, etc.). If you don't have a list, you will have trouble getting any price numbers from anyone in the real world. Make up an imaginary BOM if you must, but get some actual part numbers ready, first step - not to be skipped. Then, you can look on the web several places, try http://www.marshall.com/ which is a distributor site searchable by part number, and they will give quotes from the site. Also, http://www.national.com/ is the National Semi site, they did show the pricing and availability of various package styles. Lastly, try http://www.digikey.com/ for similar disty info. My impression is the newer logic types such as LCX (low power CMOS) are only being offered in the SMT packages. Through hole is unquestionably on the ramp down, and a minority portion of the market in 1997. In the past few years, the mainstream semiconductor manufacturers are seemingly looking for excuses (the famous mold compound shortage of a few years back) to drop the DIP packages from their price lists, as these tend to be slower sellers. Incidentally, most of the big semiconductor OEMS publish an annual "price list" which shows the various packages offered and the "recommended distributor resale" price. Moto publishes theirs on CR ROM, and it shows all the package styles and the resale price. This price is sort of a high trade price that just about anyone can get, and if you buy lots, you can get discounts as high as 40-50% of those. You can call a local rep for Moto, National, TI, etc. and get one of these easily. I would also venture to guess that the pricing on _available_ parts in DIP vs SOT or SSOP is pretty close, but that prices may actually be higher for the DIP, as this sort of packaging is less commonly used by volume producers. This is a guess on my part, you should confirm this if more depends on it than a term paper. If you are in the market for these parts, why not simply call your distributors and ask them to do some research into pricing. In most cases, they will do this if you provide a list with expected volumes. So maybe Santa will grant your requests from a more generous source than old Scrooge here, but at worst these are some "gift" suggestions to help yourself with. cheers, Jerry Cupples Interphase Corporation Dallas, TX USA http://www.iphase.com ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. 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