[sdiy] DIP LM13700 discontinuation

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Thu, 20 May 2021, Mike Beauchamp wrote:
> Can anyone comment on what cancelling the DIP package might mean to the SMT
> version in the near future? I wonder if they are no longer producing the
> actual die, or just not bothering to put it in a DIP package?

Everything ends eventually.  Small analog functions like OTAs in general
may be on borrowed time.  Also, there's been talk in this thread of how
SOICs are no harder to hand-solder than DIPs; even if we agree on that,
SOICs will not remain available forever either.  To a first approximation,
nobody builds electronics by hand anymore.  Those of us right here who
actually do, are way below the noise floor of an outfit like Texas
Instruments.  And the consequence is that some day the only chips
available will be chips that only robots can work with.

But the product change notice for this says it's because they're
discontinuing the "die attach" used by the LM13700N at a particular
factory - and lists a few other DIP products that don't seem to be closely
related except that they also use that particular process at that factory.
So I don't think it's an issue of TI wanting to stop making the LM13700
silicon more generally, nor even all DIPs in general - it's just one
production process at one factory that they want to shut down.  The DIP
LM13700N just happens to be a product affected by that decision.  I don't
think it brings the death of the SOIC version any closer; it might even
extend the lifetime of the SOIC version if a lot of people who were buying
the DIP version end up switching to the SOIC version and boosting that
product's sales.

-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                 People before tribes.
https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/