Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1337116
66 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2021 e lifecycle status informa- tion tells you if the part you are specifying is likely to be hard to get or obsolete when you go into production. We provide a "freshness indicator" here too, so that our customers can see how long ago the lifecycle data was updated. We provide two "flavors" of lifecycle status: e "Manu- facturer Lifecycle Status" is exactly what the manufac- turer says—no more, no less; and the "Lifecycle Status" is a composite spec summarizing all the lifecycle data that we have on a part. is could be from both the manufacturer and several distributors, for example. Datasheets and other manufacturer docu- mentation are probably the most critical tech- nical documentation on a part, describing its functionality in detail. e compliance data (as provided to us) helps customers determine whether that part can be used in the jurisdic- tions where they want to sell the product, including RoHS, REACH, and conflict mineral regulation compliance. Shaughnessy: Since you deal with customers around the globe, why don't you share some of the trends you're seeing in electronic compo- nents. Lipman: ere are several ways to talk about the trends that we can measure; it all depends on how you slice the data. As far as demand, in terms of popularity, we've seen increased interest in SMD chip resistors when we look at the total number of views by category in 2020. Compare this to 2019 where ceramic capacitors took the top spot in terms of raw views. Connec- tors are another category that saw a significant increase in the amount of user interest. We're calling this our "most improved" category for 2020 as we saw a 21% jump in engagement in this category compared to the previous year. Looking at the types of parts being added to the site by our partners, we see that power products and discrete semi- conductors had a big jump in the number of components added to those categories in 2020 vs. 2019. In terms of vol- ume, however, passives con- tinue to have the most com- ponents added compared to other categories. As for what this might mean for the industry more broadly, we like to avoid drawing those kinds of conclusions from our data. While we have a very broad and central view of the com- ponent landscape, there are so many factors— political, economic, just to name a few—that can impact behavior on our site, and we never want to put out information we can't confi- dently validate. Beyond the activity on Octopart, we con- tinue to see consolidation among component manufacturers, and we expect this trend to continue for a while. Shaughnessy: What is your typical customer looking for? Lipman: Purchasers are looking for inven- tory and pricing for immediate purchase. Our site gives an instantaneous view of the entire industry and provides access to part risk data and BOM tools, which makes it easy to manage orders and optimize purchasing and shipping for cost and schedule. Engineers are researching parts to include in their BOMs. Engineers know that electronic components need to be optimized in more ways than simply for performance. is includes market availability and pricing research, as well as possible alternate parts to make their designs more resilient to supply chain varia- tions. Engineers are also leveraging our ECAD Geof Lipman