Well that sucks. Microchip released a Product Change Notification (PCN) to announce that their flash memory devices in TSOP32 package will be discontinued effective immediately as they "no longer have manufacturing support" for this package :

It's a shame as the TSOP32 package was very neat, and a far more modern part than the PLCC32 package that will now be the only SMD option. But that's how it is and we have to adapt.

So what products from JD Micro will this change affect? The entire ROMX line and the video ROMs will be affected! As I still have quite a number of bare boards for the various products, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm forced to throw them out and re-design. I'd prefer to use up the existing bare boards and replace them when I need to re-order.

Thus I've purchased enough of the TSOP32 flash devices to allow me to do just that. It takes some pressure off as I'm fairly sure that the TSOP32 supplies will quite quickly start drying up now that the word is out. To compound things, the "old school" PLCC32 package is approx $1 more expensive than the outgoing part. That doesn't sound a lot, but as a percentage thats a 50% increase in price for the SST39SF010, and 30% for the larger capacity parts such as SST39SF020, 040. Ouch.

Like it or not, the future is PLCC32 for these 5V flash devices. It could be worse - at least there still is a 5V product line. As it's physically a much larger package, I was eager to see if it would still fit on the board between the header rows.

I took the ROMXc project, created a V2 file set and went to work. On the left is the existing board with the TSOP32 package, and on the right is the PLCC32 package. The board is fully routed.

The good news is that it does fit, but I've had to make some changes to make it work. Most noticeably the pads for the pin headers had to be reduced in width so they are now oblong. I wlll be ordering a handful of these boards to test that the oblong pads for the headers will work out.

I also took the opportunity to clean up the PCB overlay - removing the outline around the jtag header, updating the URL to jdmicro.com, adding the JD Micro logo to the top side, and changing the KBD to FRONT. These cosmetic changes will be applied to the other products as bare boards are re-ordered.

The PLCC32 package is much taller than the outgoing TSOP32 - it is a similar height to the battery holder. Perhaps this is why its $1 more - a lot more plastic in it! I don't think that it will cause a problem.

So, over time we'll be phasing the PLCC32 flash memory package into the ROMX product line. This will happen as/when I need to order new bare boards.