[sdiy] SSM2164 last time buys

[Neil Johnson]

David,

You wrote:
> I've gotta think that the Coolaudio clone killed off the SSM2164.

Nah, the death knell sounded years ago:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4056122/ADI-to-refocus-amid-fab-closure-job-cuts

Here is the message I got from AD's tech support last week:

"Thank you for contacting Analog Devices,please note that the SSM2164
is in the last time buy process. Due to the fab closure in San Jose,
this product can no longer be produced. ADI does not have a pin-pin
replacement. "

> It's a fairly popular chip, I would have thought, given it's combination of
> performance and price,

Popular in the synth-diy and niche synth modules market maybe.  But in
reality its a very small, tiny market.

> and I don't think that Coolaudio will stop making the
> V2164 anytime soon.  After all, they still make clones of all the BBDs, and
> who uses those anymore?

Well, CoolAudio is a different company to AD.  They have their own fab
(a nice fab, courtesy of a buy-out from Intersil apparently), and
they're addressing a specific market about which they know a lot about
the market forecasts, so they can afford to do small runs of wafers
for specific chips, such as the V2164 and the BBDs.  AD is a larger
firm and simply cannot compete on that level.

> Of course, if we all ordered a few thousand of them, that might help!

Yes, if that was "a few thousand" per month maybe.  I just bought a
tube of SSM2164s from Digikey.  I'll check the date codes tonight to
see when they were made.

Neil
-- 
http://www.njohnson.co.uk