What options are available for life cycle management and end of life (EOL) tracking of PCB components in a BOM. What are the main free and commercial services that are useful for this task. That is seeing lifecycle status and receiving product change notifications (PCNs) updates.
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2\$\begingroup\$ This is not really an EE question, and more-over, it's a shopping question which isn't particularly suited to SE in general. But a quick google search for "Product Lifecycle Management Software" brings up this: product-lifecycle-management.financesonline.com \$\endgroup\$– ShamtamMar 19, 2019 at 14:14
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1\$\begingroup\$ I know that if you buy parts at Digikey, then will send PCNs / EOLs for parts you have purchased in the past. I suspect that other distributors do this as well. \$\endgroup\$– crj11Mar 19, 2019 at 19:36
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This definitely is Electronic Engineering, as this falls under Component Engineering/Obsolescence Management which is a niche but vital part of supporting the aerospace & defence industry.
The main services I am aware of are:
- SiliconExpert - definitely has the best coverage, includes BoM manager and accurate YTEOL
- Ciiva - has a free search tool
- IHS Markit - rebranded IHS database with new front end including a BoM manager. Historically not as good coverage as SiliconExpert imo.
- Z2Data - never used it but it says 1 Billion parts on their database.
As you may expect, this information is very valuable and so the access fees can be quite high. You can sign up to SiliconExpert on a 7day free trial I believe.
There are some older solutions like Q-Star, but it has not kept up with others.
Obsolescence Management is becoming increasingly expensive for OEMs and the aftermarket is growing rapidly - Force Technologies and Rochester Electronics repackage obsolete dies for eye-watering prices. Many large OEMs have dedicated engineers that maintain in-house databases covering millions of components, as well as integrating APIs from online tools like SiliconExpert. It is not always possible to upload BoMs to these tools due to confidentiality, so management must be done in-house.
https://www.theiiom.org/ is the International Institute of Obsolescence Management, which aims to co-ordinate best practice and highlight industry wide problems such as counterfeiting. This organisation was formerly known as COG.
