At one of my consulting client companies, a young design engineer was given the task of developing a new network interface card (NIC). For this effort, he wanted to use a recently introduced network processor IC. Not surprisingly, the engineer asked the component manufacturer for the data sheet describing how the part was to be integrated into an overall system design. The response he received was that "the final data sheet has not been written yet."

Since he did not have a complete data sheet but still wanted to use the part, the design engineer made a list of specific questions. He then sent those questions to the component manufacturer's applications engineer. He asked for the characteristics of the I/O as well as the characteristics of the component package. The response he received was, "Those characteristics have not been measured yet and there is no scheduled date when the measurements will be completed." What was even more disappointing was that the applications engineer was not concerned about his inability to provide this information.

The information the design engineer is seeking is critical to his ability to create the design rules that will ensure successful operation of the component in the targeted NIC. Without this information, his use of the component amounts to a crap shoot at best.

For an electronic design engineer, attempting to design a product with components that lack reliable supporting engineering data is like asking a civil engineer to design a suspension bridge using cables that have never been characterized or tested. The question then becomes, Whose responsibility is it if the bridge fails?

For electronics, the big question remains: What can we collectively do to make sure that the availability of good, sound engineering support data for components becomes the norm and not the exception?

Lee Ritchey is the founder and president of Speeding Edge (www.speedingedge.com), a consulting firm specializing in the high-speed pc-board and system design disciplines.