Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff

What is happening with Maxim?

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peter-h:
I've designed in a load of their chips over the last 20 years.

MAX232A, MAX3089, MAX3232, MAX489, MAX706...

The first few have gone from £0.40 (10k+) to over £2. And this isn't just the current chip bubble. Maxim have been raising prices continually.

The MAX232 is multi sourced of course but the "classic" MAX232 needs 1uF caps, while the Maxim one needs just 100nF. Should have though of that at the time :)

The MAX3089 is not multi sourced AFAICS, even if you just want 115k speed.

The MAX3232 is also made by TI and as a result the price has not gone up ;)

The company has also cut itself off from normal means of communication. You have to raise a ticket on their website, and they reply to the ticket at some later point. It's weird. No "normal" comms.

capt bullshot:

--- Quote from: peter-h on September 17, 2021, 10:52:42 am ---I've designed in a load of their chips over the last 20 years.

MAX232A, MAX3089, MAX3232, MAX489, MAX706...

The first few have gone from £0.40 (10k+) to over £2. And this isn't just the current chip bubble. Maxim have been raising prices continually.

The MAX232 is multi sourced of course but the "classic" MAX232 needs 1uF caps, while the Maxim one needs just 100nF. Should have though of that at the time :)

The MAX3089 is not multi sourced AFAICS, even if you just want 115k speed.

The MAX3232 is also made by TI and as a result the price has not gone up ;)

The company has also cut itself off from normal means of communication. You have to raise a ticket on their website, and they reply to the ticket at some later point. It's weird. No "normal" comms.


--- End quote ---

For some bad experience reasons, up to 20yrs ago, Maxim isn't on the list of suppliers for me anyway. ADI has bought Maxim (got that official announcement from ADI a few days ago), so the consolidation to a few Mega-Suppliers is going on. I'd reckon with further increasing prices.

mariush:
Yeah, I was looking at their parts for LED digit drivers ... but the prices were high and stock quantities low and people all around were complaining about availability.

A bit off topic but it makes me wonder, for chips like MAX232... why not put the ceramic capacitors on the package, i imagine the die size isn't as big as the SOIC package and 0201 or 0402 ceramics aren't that thick and I doubt a lot of people would complain about the part being thicker/taller.

Zeptobars has a die shot of TI's MAX3232 and it's 3.1mm by 2 mm : https://zeptobars.com/en/read/max3232-ti-rs232-transceiver-lvttl 

Gyro:
Try complaining to AD, they seem to be convinced that the takeover is complete and all is well with their world.  ;)

From an email a couple of days ago...

Terry Bites:
Mismanagement as usual. I imagine AD will go in for some deep rationalisation of maxims product line up and a boot in the pants for max marketing.

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