Erik,

"The only company where I have been successful in getting samples from when no personal relation or volume purchasing company was involved has been Maxim. Then, of course, Maxim is next to impossible to buy less that thousands from."

Our purchasing agent told us to avoid Maxim unless it's impossible not to because Maxim's lead times are stretching out into next year.

Maxim likes to have a whole bunch of part variants in the catalog, but they only make 'em when they get enough orders to do a fab run. Nothing is in stock at distribution. I guess it makes business sense by not stocking parts nobody wants, but nobody will design in a part they can't get in quantities less than a billion. Not every company is building cell phones by the boatload.

Basically, they suck :(

--a