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Asking a question

Do you want:

• a datasheet or databook
• a description of a chip or a manufacturer of a chip that's not in the Chipdir
• to buy chips
• to mirror the Chipdir
• to add or correct something to or in the Chipdir
• to advertise in the Chipdir
• anything else

• Determine the manufacturer of the chip:
  • Look at the logo of the chip (look it up here).
  • Or look up the chip number here.
  • Or look up the prefix here.
• Look on the WWW site of the manufacturer to see if he has the datasheet.
• If not, determine your local distributor for that manufacturer and ask him.
• You can also ask the mail order distributors:

  URL	comment
  www.alliedelec.com/
  www.arrow.com/
  www.avnet.com/
  www.buerklin.de/	Germany
  www.digikey.com/
  www.farnell.com/
  www.findchips.com/
  www.freetradezone.com/
  www.jameco.com/
  www.jdr.com/
  www.maplin.co.uk/	UK
  www.mouser.com/
  www.newark.com/	Now part of the InOne family
  www.radioshack.com/
  www.reichelt.de/	Germany
  www.rs-components.com/
  www.schuricht.de/	Germany
  www.spoerle.com/	(an Arrow company)

• Subscribe to the Chipdir Mailing List and ask there. Usually people will try to help you.
• You can also check other WWW sites like cmpmedia.globalspec.com/. See the main page for more of them.

Other sites with a lot of chip data are:

• The complete text on the chip, without inserting spaces in the name (!) etc.
• Give the manufacturer or describe the logo.
• Give the number of pins and/or describe the package.
• Describe the kind of device the chip came out of.
• When not clear from your email address or your signature mention the country or state you live in (so people can suggest distributors etc.).

I read that Chipdir Mailing List too. Make sure the subject line is something like 'looking for description of SN74LS00'.

You can also check other WWW sites like cmpmedia.globalspec.com/. See the main page for more of them.

If you want to buy some chips.

• You want a serious amount (say $200+) of scarce chips
• You want small amounts of scarce chips
• You want non-scarce chips

Use this form to look for the chips in the IC* Source database and later press the RFQ (Request For Quote) button to get a quote later via email.

If you want non-scarce chips

• You can ask people on mailing lists or in newsgroups if they have spares.
• You can try to find a broker, OEM or distributor yourself that still has stock (to save the intermediary cost of using a broker), but beware for the pittfalls here! (You can study these pages first, but there is really a lot to learn about this business!)
• To find stock yourself use one of the other bro2bro services.
• You can also phone or fax a couple of distributors in other countries and/or states to see of they still have stock on your chip.