[sdiy] reissue parts

[mark verbos]

in that case, don't make a CA3080 and right the wrong int he design. 
Make a chip that doesn't have the extra transistor in the  OTA so you 
can control from NPN transistors.

Maybe a ship that has all the major matched parts of a synthesizer on it 
and you can use what you need of it in any given design. OR just build 
using discrete components that won't go out of production. ;)

Mark

Tom Arnold wrote:

>On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:38:35PM -0700, Scott Gravenhorst wrote:
>  
>
>>I admire and respect your hopeful nature, but that's just not realistic. 
>>It is, after all, about profit, staying in business, and nothing else.  The
>>industry, even for music electronics, has moved beyond analog and into
>>digital, (and I don't wish to debate the merits of either).  We are the
>>few, the brave, the proud, and all we can do is make lifetime purchases of
>>those beloved components that have been flagged as obsolete.
>>    
>>
>
>We are the few, the brave, the proud, and in my case the slightly insane :-)
>
>http://www.arraydesign.com/
>
>Semi-Custom chips.  The pricing isnt even that horrible.
>http://www.arraydesign.com/700series.html for the manual for the process.
>$3000/week if they do the design work, but for simple-ish devices usable for
>us I think we could skip that.
>"...and  the charge for mask and prototype wafer is $5000. A small quantity
>of chips  (e.g. 25-100) can be assembled within a week (an additional
>charge) and there  are enough die left on the 6" wafer to make an initial
>production lot."
>
>Is it a lot of money?  Well, yes and no.  In a few years how much will
>SSM2040's be worth to someone fixing an old Synth?  If packaging the initial
>100 batch runs $2k, that still only puts the initial Prototype batch at
>$70each, with probably a few hundred dies left on the wafer that could
>further lower the cost.
>
>I honestly think this will be SynthDIY at the next level.  Sure, perhaps I'm
>nuts, but I really see a custom chip as the next ASM1, the only thing
>stopping it is agreeing on what it should be...  I rather doubt we'd be
>making something as simple as the CA3080, when that chip is simple enough
>internally do be done as a surfacemount hybrid module.  With the new
>processes being developed like Seiko's ink-jet printed ICs...  imagining the
>possibilities makes me giddy...  a service like emachineshop.com or
>frontpanelexpress.com except for custom ICs.
>
>  
>