"Not all the specifications of a given part may be applicable in the design consideration"
Agreed, but it is better to have the documentation to serve for guidelines. This way, you can use the information to search for similar components when you cannot find the component with the actual (same) specs.
Some of the components documentation principles can also be applied to software documentation. However, it is difficult to have everything documented because of deadline constraints. Developers sometimes just want to have their jobs done and never have enough time to spend on providing support for their software.
Having the complete technical documentation of the components used in a product design always helps in testing and servicing of the products in the field.
I would like to mention one important point here. Not all the specifications of a given part may be applicable in the design consideration of a part and there may be some leverage available in certain specifications. If the designer documents -what was required specification in his design against what was the specification of the chosen component - it will help finding second source components which may not be matching the original part in terms of specifications but will be able to meet the designers specifications.
@Douglas, Once again great article. Very informative. To be frank datasheets always scared me. I will definitely refer "How to Read Datasheets" by C.J. Ganier so that I can overcome this fear.
Tthis article is very helpfull and outlines the best practices to get appropiate datasheets, in development those documents are live and changing all the time based on customer expectations
Memos. Try www.lansdale.com for obsolete parts replacements. These guys bought up the old dies and masks and still manufacturer many parts that were obsoleted by the original manufacturer.
As a global pioneer in IC products life cycle management, Lansdale manufactures over 3,000 classic design ICs in the original package, exactly as they were created and produced by AMD, Fairchild, Freescale Semiconductor, Harris, Intel, Motorola, National, Philips (formerly Signetics), and Raytheon.
If you need help with specific replacements, just email me or visit www.componentsengineering.com and sign up. No charge for helping so let us know what tough part you are attempting to replace now.
Barbara,
Fortunately, there are component "alert" services to which a company can subscribe. The nature of these alerts deal with different Part Master maintenance concerns. Of major concern are the EOL, End Of Life alerts. However, many general form, fit, or function changes are captured in PCN, Product Change Notices, issued by the manufacturer. The absolute best way to keep a part's data up-to-date is to have a service that references the company's internal part numbers to targeted alert notifications that "pushes" the part particulars to the service subscriber's email automatically. So, if a company had their entire Item Master Part listing automatically assigned to an alert service as mentioned, then the manual scrub no longer becomes necessary. Soon to be arriving in January is one such service offered by EEContent.com which will not only cross reference a company's internal part numbers to PCN And EOL type alerts, but also environmental compliance such as REACH, Registration-Evaluation-Analysis-restriction of CHemicals. These chemicals being further defined as SVHC or Substances of Very High Concern. The EEContent.com service will perpetually scrub any BOM uploaded to the service so that every REACH, EOL, and PCN alert is tracked against every internal part number. This will not only save the company a lot of effort in keeping the part's list current, but will also provide instantaneous analysis of the company's products readiness to ship to REACH compliant countries. The other reason a part database would be periodically scrubbed would be because companies are always buying up other companies and obsoleting/obscuring the original manufacturer's name and part number. Hence it is best to have the ability to track a manufacturer's genealogy as well. Parts listed under Motorola several years ago, may now be manufactured by Freescale. A notice service offering genealogy information is most helpful for keeping the AVL part of the Item Master up-to-date. EEContent.com also has the genealogy service available as part of their standard subscription service. Barbara, I appreciate your manufacturing savvy a lot. I believe there is much that readers can gain from reading blog responses and not just the content of the blogs themselves. My recommendation, in answer to your question, " how often should one worry about updating the component database" is a lot less than they do without a subscription service. EEContent is the most affordable service available now and this is the team that introduced PCN Alert back in the late 90s early 2000s. So now with the advances in the Internet and lower cost of storage and services, in my opinion, every company should be actively pursuing any alert service that gives them the most comprehensive alert types, while not straining the company's fiscal constraints.
Very Helpful article , I want also to mention how much help you have when you are working in the Service sector and you can have freely access to all of these documentations and part manuals. But problem occurs when the part is not in the market any more and you are trying to find a replacement for that. I dont Know how but we must find a solution to that ....
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