It seems a lot of this forum is talking about trying to source or substitute transistors that are no longer made (funny, just like tubes!)
What inspired this post was reading about the Semisouth SJEP120R (or the Sony VFET stuff), and seeing the prices those command (but by no means limited to just those parts).
I work with a lot of manufacturers (but not semiconductors/raw parts like this), and am familiar with MOQ (minimum order quantities) + the fixed costs to do stuff. I am also familiar with some processes that can be done in small quantities (order sizes of under 1,000), and some things that only make sense to do in huge quantities (usually because there is a huge fixed cost to setup a line and run it - even if you wanted 1,000 of them, you might have to pay 5x per part of ordering 10,000). I would be willing to bet almost all the cost of a transistor is in the fixed cost of the line, not the cost of the part itself.
Curious what the economics would be for small runs of highly-desirable parts like this. I think the wild card is the margins are normally razor thin on these products when new (before they became desirable), so they need to make 10,000 or 100,000 to even make it a consideration. I'll be VERY charitable and say they make $1 in profit per unit (likely much less than that, offset by HUGE volumes, might be more like $0.10/unit in profit).
What if the business case is they make $20...or $50 in profit per unit? Could they justify doing a production run of <1,000 units? If people are willing to pay $100 for a NOS part, and they could sell a new one (that might even be better) for half that, maybe it would be a low-volume but highly profitable venture. It would need to be contingent on having buyers lined up before production began, so very much a chicken or egg situation. Only a fool would build a $50 transistor and then hope someone would buy them.
I don't think this would ever make sense for just our little DIY community, but curious if it was something that could be used in a commercial product, and the parts were made available externally as well. Same way some speaker brands sell their raw drivers in addition to finish loudspeakers.
What inspired this post was reading about the Semisouth SJEP120R (or the Sony VFET stuff), and seeing the prices those command (but by no means limited to just those parts).
I work with a lot of manufacturers (but not semiconductors/raw parts like this), and am familiar with MOQ (minimum order quantities) + the fixed costs to do stuff. I am also familiar with some processes that can be done in small quantities (order sizes of under 1,000), and some things that only make sense to do in huge quantities (usually because there is a huge fixed cost to setup a line and run it - even if you wanted 1,000 of them, you might have to pay 5x per part of ordering 10,000). I would be willing to bet almost all the cost of a transistor is in the fixed cost of the line, not the cost of the part itself.
Curious what the economics would be for small runs of highly-desirable parts like this. I think the wild card is the margins are normally razor thin on these products when new (before they became desirable), so they need to make 10,000 or 100,000 to even make it a consideration. I'll be VERY charitable and say they make $1 in profit per unit (likely much less than that, offset by HUGE volumes, might be more like $0.10/unit in profit).
What if the business case is they make $20...or $50 in profit per unit? Could they justify doing a production run of <1,000 units? If people are willing to pay $100 for a NOS part, and they could sell a new one (that might even be better) for half that, maybe it would be a low-volume but highly profitable venture. It would need to be contingent on having buyers lined up before production began, so very much a chicken or egg situation. Only a fool would build a $50 transistor and then hope someone would buy them.
I don't think this would ever make sense for just our little DIY community, but curious if it was something that could be used in a commercial product, and the parts were made available externally as well. Same way some speaker brands sell their raw drivers in addition to finish loudspeakers.