IC on Digikey is 5x more expensive than board containing same IC on Alibaba: How? Announcing...

Is there a verb for listening stealthily?

Weaponising the Grasp-at-a-Distance spell

Pointing to problems without suggesting solutions

"Destructive power" carried by a B-52?

Can two people see the same photon?

The test team as an enemy of development? And how can this be avoided?

How could a hydrazine and N2O4 cloud (or it's reactants) show up in weather radar?

What should one know about term logic before studying propositional and predicate logic?

How to name indistinguishable henchmen in a screenplay?

Can gravitational waves pass through a black hole?

Any stored/leased 737s that could substitute for grounded MAXs?

How can I prevent/balance waiting and turtling as a response to cooldown mechanics

How to ask rejected full-time candidates to apply to teach individual courses?

Dinosaur Word Search, Letter Solve, and Unscramble

How do Java 8 default methods hеlp with lambdas?

Where and when has Thucydides been studied?

Did any compiler fully use 80-bit floating point?

What helicopter has the most rotor blades?

Twin's vs. Twins'

Why can't fire hurt Daenerys but it did to Jon Snow in season 1?

3D Masyu - A Die

Was the pager message from Nick Fury to Captain Marvel unnecessary?

Does the main washing effect of soap come from foam?

What is "Lambda" in Heston's original paper on stochastic volatility models?



IC on Digikey is 5x more expensive than board containing same IC on Alibaba: How?



Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)low-cost idea for Identifying passive tags by inductive coupling/pulsesMinimizing PCB size of a 192 RGB LED arrayWhy DRAM costs much more than flash memory?What special problems are there if I use two radio modules on the same board?Can a 6 volt relay coil bear more than 6 volt?How to properly layout an external antenna seating and on board antenna at the same time?Eagle: supply pin vcc overwritten with more than one signalDesigning NFC/RFID PCBFirst PCB project design critique requested (RF) EDITEDMy antenna tuning component values worked on a fresh board previously. Now they're not working. What could be causing this?





.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty{ margin-bottom:0;
}







1












$begingroup$


I built a prototype using an NFC board I bought from Alibaba for 1$ (https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/rfid-rc522.html).



It claims to use the NXP MFRC522 IC, and if I look on the board the chip has that part number and even the little NXP logo. It works like a charm on the prototype so now I'd like to build the NFC antenna into the product and use the same chip (I'll go through the antenna tuning/matching process).



The problem is this: If I want to buy this IC on Digikey, it costs $5.36 for QTY 1 and $3.61 for QTY 1,500 (https://www.digikey.com/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rfid-rf-access-monitoring-ics/880?k=rc522). The whole board from Alibaba which comes assembled with other passives and a crystal oscillator, along with 2 NFC tags and some headers, is about 1$.



How can this be possible? Is this just a result of economies of scale (are they really making this many generic NFC boards?) or are the ICs definitely clones? I'd love to be able to use the IC only and make my own PCB antenna, but jumping from 1$ to even $3.61 has a very significant effect on the overall cost of the product.



Does anyone know what justifies this huge price difference and how to deal with it as an electronics designer trying to keep costs low? Any advice is appreciated.










share|improve this question









$endgroup$



















    1












    $begingroup$


    I built a prototype using an NFC board I bought from Alibaba for 1$ (https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/rfid-rc522.html).



    It claims to use the NXP MFRC522 IC, and if I look on the board the chip has that part number and even the little NXP logo. It works like a charm on the prototype so now I'd like to build the NFC antenna into the product and use the same chip (I'll go through the antenna tuning/matching process).



    The problem is this: If I want to buy this IC on Digikey, it costs $5.36 for QTY 1 and $3.61 for QTY 1,500 (https://www.digikey.com/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rfid-rf-access-monitoring-ics/880?k=rc522). The whole board from Alibaba which comes assembled with other passives and a crystal oscillator, along with 2 NFC tags and some headers, is about 1$.



    How can this be possible? Is this just a result of economies of scale (are they really making this many generic NFC boards?) or are the ICs definitely clones? I'd love to be able to use the IC only and make my own PCB antenna, but jumping from 1$ to even $3.61 has a very significant effect on the overall cost of the product.



    Does anyone know what justifies this huge price difference and how to deal with it as an electronics designer trying to keep costs low? Any advice is appreciated.










    share|improve this question









    $endgroup$















      1












      1








      1





      $begingroup$


      I built a prototype using an NFC board I bought from Alibaba for 1$ (https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/rfid-rc522.html).



      It claims to use the NXP MFRC522 IC, and if I look on the board the chip has that part number and even the little NXP logo. It works like a charm on the prototype so now I'd like to build the NFC antenna into the product and use the same chip (I'll go through the antenna tuning/matching process).



      The problem is this: If I want to buy this IC on Digikey, it costs $5.36 for QTY 1 and $3.61 for QTY 1,500 (https://www.digikey.com/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rfid-rf-access-monitoring-ics/880?k=rc522). The whole board from Alibaba which comes assembled with other passives and a crystal oscillator, along with 2 NFC tags and some headers, is about 1$.



      How can this be possible? Is this just a result of economies of scale (are they really making this many generic NFC boards?) or are the ICs definitely clones? I'd love to be able to use the IC only and make my own PCB antenna, but jumping from 1$ to even $3.61 has a very significant effect on the overall cost of the product.



      Does anyone know what justifies this huge price difference and how to deal with it as an electronics designer trying to keep costs low? Any advice is appreciated.










      share|improve this question









      $endgroup$




      I built a prototype using an NFC board I bought from Alibaba for 1$ (https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/rfid-rc522.html).



      It claims to use the NXP MFRC522 IC, and if I look on the board the chip has that part number and even the little NXP logo. It works like a charm on the prototype so now I'd like to build the NFC antenna into the product and use the same chip (I'll go through the antenna tuning/matching process).



      The problem is this: If I want to buy this IC on Digikey, it costs $5.36 for QTY 1 and $3.61 for QTY 1,500 (https://www.digikey.com/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rfid-rf-access-monitoring-ics/880?k=rc522). The whole board from Alibaba which comes assembled with other passives and a crystal oscillator, along with 2 NFC tags and some headers, is about 1$.



      How can this be possible? Is this just a result of economies of scale (are they really making this many generic NFC boards?) or are the ICs definitely clones? I'd love to be able to use the IC only and make my own PCB antenna, but jumping from 1$ to even $3.61 has a very significant effect on the overall cost of the product.



      Does anyone know what justifies this huge price difference and how to deal with it as an electronics designer trying to keep costs low? Any advice is appreciated.







      pcb pcb-design pcb-antenna nfc cost






      share|improve this question













      share|improve this question











      share|improve this question




      share|improve this question










      asked 48 mins ago









      MapleTronixMapleTronix

      965




      965






















          2 Answers
          2






          active

          oldest

          votes


















          2












          $begingroup$

          I would say that they are probably counterfeit,this is a well known problem when buying from china, you cant be sure that they are original unless you are buying from a trusted chinese supplier.
          Most of the time they work alright if you are not pushing them to the spec limits,here are some links that can help you through this problem of chinese counterfeit IC and how to identify if what you are buying is fake






          share|improve this answer









          $endgroup$





















            1












            $begingroup$

            Digikey sources their parts from the makers and adds a retail mark up.



            The alibaba seller takes remnants from someone's production run (or possibly salvaged parts, or if you're unlucky counterfeit parts) they don't pay full price.






            share|improve this answer









            $endgroup$














              Your Answer






              StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function () {
              return StackExchange.using("schematics", function () {
              StackExchange.schematics.init();
              });
              }, "cicuitlab");

              StackExchange.ready(function() {
              var channelOptions = {
              tags: "".split(" "),
              id: "135"
              };
              initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

              StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
              // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
              if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
              StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
              createEditor();
              });
              }
              else {
              createEditor();
              }
              });

              function createEditor() {
              StackExchange.prepareEditor({
              heartbeatType: 'answer',
              autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
              convertImagesToLinks: false,
              noModals: true,
              showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
              reputationToPostImages: null,
              bindNavPrevention: true,
              postfix: "",
              imageUploader: {
              brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
              contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
              allowUrls: true
              },
              onDemand: true,
              discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
              ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
              });


              }
              });














              draft saved

              draft discarded


















              StackExchange.ready(
              function () {
              StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2felectronics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f433773%2fic-on-digikey-is-5x-more-expensive-than-board-containing-same-ic-on-alibaba-how%23new-answer', 'question_page');
              }
              );

              Post as a guest















              Required, but never shown

























              2 Answers
              2






              active

              oldest

              votes








              2 Answers
              2






              active

              oldest

              votes









              active

              oldest

              votes






              active

              oldest

              votes









              2












              $begingroup$

              I would say that they are probably counterfeit,this is a well known problem when buying from china, you cant be sure that they are original unless you are buying from a trusted chinese supplier.
              Most of the time they work alright if you are not pushing them to the spec limits,here are some links that can help you through this problem of chinese counterfeit IC and how to identify if what you are buying is fake






              share|improve this answer









              $endgroup$


















                2












                $begingroup$

                I would say that they are probably counterfeit,this is a well known problem when buying from china, you cant be sure that they are original unless you are buying from a trusted chinese supplier.
                Most of the time they work alright if you are not pushing them to the spec limits,here are some links that can help you through this problem of chinese counterfeit IC and how to identify if what you are buying is fake






                share|improve this answer









                $endgroup$
















                  2












                  2








                  2





                  $begingroup$

                  I would say that they are probably counterfeit,this is a well known problem when buying from china, you cant be sure that they are original unless you are buying from a trusted chinese supplier.
                  Most of the time they work alright if you are not pushing them to the spec limits,here are some links that can help you through this problem of chinese counterfeit IC and how to identify if what you are buying is fake






                  share|improve this answer









                  $endgroup$



                  I would say that they are probably counterfeit,this is a well known problem when buying from china, you cant be sure that they are original unless you are buying from a trusted chinese supplier.
                  Most of the time they work alright if you are not pushing them to the spec limits,here are some links that can help you through this problem of chinese counterfeit IC and how to identify if what you are buying is fake







                  share|improve this answer












                  share|improve this answer



                  share|improve this answer










                  answered 32 mins ago









                  Lucas AlexandreLucas Alexandre

                  335313




                  335313

























                      1












                      $begingroup$

                      Digikey sources their parts from the makers and adds a retail mark up.



                      The alibaba seller takes remnants from someone's production run (or possibly salvaged parts, or if you're unlucky counterfeit parts) they don't pay full price.






                      share|improve this answer









                      $endgroup$


















                        1












                        $begingroup$

                        Digikey sources their parts from the makers and adds a retail mark up.



                        The alibaba seller takes remnants from someone's production run (or possibly salvaged parts, or if you're unlucky counterfeit parts) they don't pay full price.






                        share|improve this answer









                        $endgroup$
















                          1












                          1








                          1





                          $begingroup$

                          Digikey sources their parts from the makers and adds a retail mark up.



                          The alibaba seller takes remnants from someone's production run (or possibly salvaged parts, or if you're unlucky counterfeit parts) they don't pay full price.






                          share|improve this answer









                          $endgroup$



                          Digikey sources their parts from the makers and adds a retail mark up.



                          The alibaba seller takes remnants from someone's production run (or possibly salvaged parts, or if you're unlucky counterfeit parts) they don't pay full price.







                          share|improve this answer












                          share|improve this answer



                          share|improve this answer










                          answered 39 mins ago









                          JasenJasen

                          11.7k1531




                          11.7k1531






























                              draft saved

                              draft discarded




















































                              Thanks for contributing an answer to Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange!


                              • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

                              But avoid



                              • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

                              • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


                              Use MathJax to format equations. MathJax reference.


                              To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




                              draft saved


                              draft discarded














                              StackExchange.ready(
                              function () {
                              StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2felectronics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f433773%2fic-on-digikey-is-5x-more-expensive-than-board-containing-same-ic-on-alibaba-how%23new-answer', 'question_page');
                              }
                              );

                              Post as a guest















                              Required, but never shown





















































                              Required, but never shown














                              Required, but never shown












                              Required, but never shown







                              Required, but never shown

































                              Required, but never shown














                              Required, but never shown












                              Required, but never shown







                              Required, but never shown







                              Popular posts from this blog

                              Paper upload error, “Upload failed: The top margin is 0.715 in on page 3, which is below the required...

                              Emraan Hashmi Filmografia | Linki zewnętrzne | Menu nawigacyjneGulshan GroverGulshan...

                              How can I write this formula?newline and italics added with leqWhy does widehat behave differently if I...