MLCC Procurement - Price Rant, Chinese Substitutes

[ACharnley]

Hallo!

I have a PCBA requirement for:

11x 1210 50V 10uF X5R
6x 1210 25v 22uF X5R
2x 1206 50V 10uF X5R

I didn't realise MLCC's would be so costly, for example the top and middle in bulk are about $0.25 each. Adding in the 4x 220uF tantalums I need and I'm looking at about $6-7 USD per board for capacitors alone. Unfortunately space is an absolute premium and it's not worth switching to electrolytics. To that end, I've been discussing with Chinese distributors which say they can do no-brand (aka "no, we don't have a datasheet") for about $0.04 in bulk.

But I'm wary. Even if I had samples tested over here there's no guarantee they won't swap them come time to order reels.

For those with experience procuring parts without paying cartel prices, how do you go about it to ensure you don't get stung?

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[gophert]

Hallo!

I have a PCBA requirement for:

11x 1210 50V 10uF X5R
6x 1210 25v 22uF X5R
2x 1206 50V 10uF X5R

I didn't realise MLCC's would be so costly, for example the top and middle in bulk are about $0.25 each. Adding in the 4x 220uF tantalums I need and I'm looking at about $6-7 USD per board for capacitors alone. Unfortunately space is an absolute premium and it's not worth switching to electrolytics. To that end, I've been discussing with Chinese distributors which say they can do no-brand (aka "no, we don't have a datasheet") for about $0.04 in bulk.

But I'm wary. Even if I had samples tested over here there's no guarantee they won't swap them come time to order reels.

For those with experience procuring parts without paying cartel prices, how do you go about it to ensure you don't get stung?

Cheers,

Andrew

A) you can fly to China and inspect them yourself before you pay for them.
B) have the boards built by a local company and then drive over to inspect them yourself before paying.

Apple uses option (A), many companies use option (B).

Option (C) is based on "hope" but I don't do business that way so I will let someone else address that option.

 

[ACharnley]

It's going to be fun fun fun.

I'm also wondering how the devil Samsung managed to create an MLCC which has 50% the usual (1206) volume.

CL21A226MAQNNNE Samsung Electro-Mechanics | Capacitors | DigiKey

Order today, ships today. CL21A226MAQNNNE – 22 µF ±20% 25V Ceramic Capacitor X5R 0805 (2012 Metric) from Samsung Electro-Mechanics. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.co.uk

 

[gophert]

I'm also wondering how the devil Samsung managed to create an MLCC which has 50% the usual (1206) volume.

CL21A226MAQNNNE Samsung Electro-Mechanics | Capacitors | DigiKey

Order today, ships today. CL21A226MAQNNNE – 22 µF ±20% 25V Ceramic Capacitor X5R 0805 (2012 Metric) from Samsung Electro-Mechanics. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.co.uk

Is that a rhetorical question or do you really want to know? If you really want to know, what have you done so far to find out?

 

[ACharnley]

No I want to know, I have three PCB's on order and one is using these, if they're successful.

So far I've compared the datasheets but the one for the above is lacking comparative information.