irving2008,
This is a common occurrence with IC manufacturers. They are silicon IC design and manufacturing experts but not application experts. Here's how it works:
Company X gets a contract to design an application specific IC. The customer that contracts Company X has a very specific and narrow requirement that meets their need; an example might be a step motor driver IC for a particular motor that will go into a particular ink-jet printer.
Their contracted need is for a bazillion motor ICs that will go into a bazillion printers to be marketed in 2001. The ICs work as expected and a bazillion printers are sold. They are never seen again after 2002. To help defray the ASIC costs, the printer manufacturer releases the rights for Company X to market this IC to anyone after 2002. The printer manufacturer won't need them after 2001 so it's a safe bet.
Company X puts their own part number on the motor IC and markets it to all comers in 2002. It costs them nothing in design or development because someone else already paid for it. They draw up datasheets, set a price schedule and put the part in their stable of available IC devices.
You look at the datasheet, it is 10 pages long, and the part seems to be OK. You buy it, try it, and you find there are some esoteric details that make the part problematic in your design. Kind of like the unusual current blanking time for instance. Company X is a reputable good guy, they come up with application notes that delineate the shortcomings of this particular detail and explain how it's designed in and cannot be overcome.
You are a reputable good guy yourself. You start searching through application notes only after you have a design problem. That's reasonable; how can you look for a solution to a problem before you know you have one? You have to invest time and money to reveal a problem exists with an IC. Then you go to app notes.:-)
Who is to blame? Lots of choices but in the end, in large part you are. Company X put up the product you bought and had the app-notes that explained why their product may not be perfect for you. You on the other hand expected to have Company X to give you what you wanted without you having to do the work necessary to get what you want. Their IC is what it is; they are not obligated to make it what you want.
This is the crux of it. If you want something to meet your needs then you have to do it the hard way; design it yourself. Company X is not obligated to do it for you and they won't.
You have every resource at your disposal today. CPLDs are tools to design what you want your way and they are marvelous. You don't need to depend on Allegro or SGS Thompson to give you what you want. Make it yourself; it will work better.
Mariss  |