you know, i think that thae problem is that there is not a standard, i looked in some catalogs(at the place where i buy my components, the paper catalogs from 2002) and i say that different companies have different way to type. like you said for some companies the value written in 3 digits is **+*-zeros, like in colour code for resistors, and the value is mesured in picos. other use someting else. capacitors up to 1n have the value written in picos, even if there are 3 digits, 150 means 150p, not 15p, so it is good to check, before you put it in the circuit