Hi Erik,

Since all I do is prototype work, I have never been concerned with column pricing. I am, nonetheless, always interested in my bottom line cost.

I had noticed you mention an online supplier named Mouser several times, so I was intrigued when SiLabs linked me directly to them (in the process of ordering a CP2102-EK, and later on the plain CP-2102s). It also happened that in the past few months I noticed that Digikey had taken up charging sales tax.

So I did an A-B comparison of a BOM from Digikey and Mouser. The bottom line was that Mouser saved me 27% over Digikey for a largely single-quantities BOM order. I don't care whether you're ordering prototype or production quantities, 27% is a significant savings. I now go to Mouser first, and to Digikey only if I need a certain part that I can't get through Mouser.

In case your curious, the savings wasn't as significant as that on the ICs and semiconductors alone. But when you throw in all the chip parts (caps and resistors) the difference gets to be a significant percentage.

FYI, just in case you're interested,

Joe