Resistor network tags to stay stable
Gina Roos -- Purchasing, 10/21/2004 2:00:00 AM
Buyers can expect stable leadtimes and mostly flat prices for resistor networks and arrays for the remainder of the year and into early 2005.
Leadtimes for chip arrays will remain in the five- to eight-week range while thin-film networks delivery times will be eight to 10 weeks. Prices for most arrays and networks will be stable with the exception of precision thin-film resistor networks. There will be sporadic price hikes for those parts due to rising materials costs for ceramics and precious metals. However thick-film parts should see a 5% price decline due to more-than-ample supply.
Cell phones are driving demand for chip arrays. Mobile handsets are using more arrays because they save board space compared to networks.
The traditional thick-film single-in-line (SIP) and dual-in-line (DIP) resistor network market continues to dwindle as resistor chip arrays are used more often. However, high-reliability and high-end applications typically still call for thin-film resistor networks because of their greater performance characteristics.
The older style networks are a very mature market and probably declining, says Ron Sullivan, vice president of marketing and sales for BI Technologies, Fullerton, Calif. He says most new designs use chip arrays, ball-grid arrays (BGA) or semiconductor-type packages.
Despite a slowdown in September bookings after a banner first half in shipments, the global resistor network market (including arrays) will grow 5-7% to $331.6 million in 2004, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan. "We're seeing a rebound in the wireless, mobile phone market, which is having a positive impact on the resistor network market," said Keith Robinson, industry analyst for Frost & Sullivan. He also says increased electronics manufacturing in China has had a positive impact on orders in the marketplace.
Several leading resistor network manufacturers report similar or higher growth rates in the 6-15% range this year. Miniaturization is still a key trend in the resistor array market particularly for small consumer-type devices such as cell phones, digital cameras and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Consumer electronics equipment will drive growth. For instance, Yageo, Plano, Texas, expects a sales growth rate of 10-15% in 2004. David Ritchey, senior applications engineer says one reason for the company's success is because about 60% of its business comes from China. The North American market has become more of a design and prototype region, unless it's a very high-end product, and in those cases, product will be manufactured in North America, Ritchey says. He also attributes growth to demand for chip arrays in hand-held products.
David Valletta, senior vice president, global strategic sales, for Vishay Intertechnology agrees. He says the long-term outlook is good for resistor arrays with sales growth rates of about 10-15% per year. The biggest trend is the continual push for miniaturization, Valletta says, and Vishay's primary focus is to develop product that allows customers to eliminate more components on the board and to save board space.
The commodity market is probably moving further away from traditional networks to surface-mount arrays but there are still military, avionics and telecommunications applications where a traditional network is required, Valletta says. With equipment where board space is at a premium, such as consumer electronics equipment, arrays are an attractive alternative because they allow designers to eliminate discrete chips from the board and reduce the number of pad layouts, he adds.
A good example is Vishay's CZA series of thick-film surface-mount attenuator arrays for mobile phones. They are used as pi filters, which reduce electromagnetic interference, and replace three discrete resistors with one device. "The real value is where you can offer an engineer a drop-in replacement for a function," Valletta says.
"You're always battling the price of an array versus the price of the discrete component but when you start to replace functions, the cost starts to become comparative," he says.
Resistor network and array manufacturers including Vishay, BI Technologies and Stackpole Electronics (formerly SEI Electronics) are developing specialized components to replace specific functions, such as attenuators, voltage dividers, filters, or line feed resistors.
For example, Vishay is beefing up precision thin-film resistor network offerings for high-end applications in computing, networking and test and measurement by providing much tighter tolerance parts and more standard resistance values.
Similarly, Sullivan says BI Technologies is focusing more on adding value through the development of hybrid products. Those parts combine thick-film and thin-film technologies along with special packaging and IC integration for applications that typically have size limitations or higher power requirements.
On the other hand, Stackpole is applying its proprietary fine film deposition process (that enables the company to achieve highly precise resistive traces) to a new line of thickfilm resistor networks that offer thin-film performance at thick-film pricing levels. The new HVD series of resistor networks offers lower noise, tighter tolerances, higher voltages and a wider resistance range. Since these are application specific designs, deliveries for samples are about four weeks. Pricing starts at approximately $2.00 each in quantities of 2,000. In low volume, some devices will run about $4 to $5 each.
Rob Hudspeth, Stackpole's director of sales, says the key advantage of using the precision film deposition process for the HVD series is the wide resistance range up to two teraohms as well as the resistance ratios of up to 20,000:1, which is virtually unheard of in the industry.
One primary application for the new line is telecom circuitry as a line feed resistor, where all the performance characteristics—high ohmic values, high stability, high voltage ratings, tight ratio tolerance and low noise—are all very important for this application, Hudspeth says.
Expect stable prices for resistor networks
11/15/2000
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