Whenever I start a new project, one of the first things I must do is search for suitable components to see if the project is feasible. Most of my projects are desperately space constrained, so I don't always have the luxury of just using parts I'm familiar with. Often I have to start from scratch, visiting each manufacturer's web site, and trawling through dozens of parts, using their part filters (which often don't filter by the attributes I'm interested in, like part size). I'll also go to the suppliers (Farnell, Mouser, etc.) to find parts. I often need to read each datasheet to discover the missing details. Finally I record them in a huge spreadsheet, so that I can select the 'optimal' part.
Even when I've done this, I can't help feeling that I must have missed some manufacturers. Maybe I should have checked Allegro, or Melexis…
This must be a common problem for electronic engineers trying to select the optimum components. It certainly is for me. How do other EEs approach this task? Is there some global electronic component search engine I haven't heard of?
Best Answer
I always start my search for components on digikey; they have a fairly good interface for narrowing down the search results (for example, you can specify the package and mounting type you need). If I can not find the exact part that I need on digikey, I would visit the manufacturer's websites of the parts that the narrowed down digikey search returns.
This is the approach I have taken. It is not perfect and can be time consuming at times, but other times you can find a suitable part very quickly.