Hi, I thought I'd just do a quick, fun video taking a look at some of the most expensive components you can get. This came about because I was doing some searching for an upcoming video on Digikey here and I just, uh, I don't know. I goofed up the search somehow and it was just showing all these expensive voltage regulators and stuff and going, what's what's going on here. So I thought it'd be interesting to actually look at, um, like, some of the most expensive parts we can get on Digikey here.

There's obviously other Um sites, but we'll just use Digi-key now. This one actually came about because yeah, it. as I said, like I was just searching for voltage references, right? And then all of a sudden I must have goofed it. And then, like all these weird microchip ones, came up like like 43 38, 40, 103 for a 7805 voltage regulator and stuff like that.

So I thought, you know, like I've occasionally done this before. Uh, like just for kicks. I've like, um, sorted by the most expensive part. So I thought we'd go through a couple of categories and just find the most expensive parts we can.

So here we go. I'm in voltage regulators here and I've sorted by price. The most expensive voltage regulator on Digi-key is this bad boy at 1 653. Oh wow.

None of this component shortage rubbish. They got 1260 of these bad boys at the Texas Instruments Factory. You can order these right, and then we've got the next most expensive 721. These are all.

uh, yankee. Am I Yankee bucks here? Yep, I mean Yankee Bucks. That's from what were Rochester Electronics there? Like a parts broker kind of thing. I like, did you keep like done deals with like parts brokers and stuff now and stuff like that? Yeah, so I think Rochester Electronics was one of the ones they partnered with, so I'm not sure if that actually comes from digi-key stock or not.

Probably does. It's got a digi-key part number I guess. Anyway, yeah, let's let's have a look at this bad boy. So here's the 1653 voltage regulator.

Here it is here. It's an ultra low just. you'd want to be ultra low Dropout for 600 bucks. Look at this.

Low noise. 20 micro volts Rms. Okay, it's a very nice voltage regulator. Why is it 1600 bucks? Well, it's obscure.

It's probably. yeah. Supports harsh environment applications available in extreme temperature range literally 210, 210 degrees C range. Um, yes.

So these are used in military and satellite and all that sort of stuff. Where like 1600 bucks for one part for one satellite for example. Um, that's you know, going to Saturn or something. It makes no difference how much it costs.

So you know that obviously space grade might be different. But right? And military grade? Does it actually have military? Uh, great. Often they'll have like, uh, it'll be yeah, Mills Mil Mil standard down here so you can see that uh, this Sg one down here, for example, 302 dollars, that's you know, it meets Mill standard. Whatever.

So that's like a micro semi. It's just a like a one one seven. Like like a Lm Three One Seven One one seven is like the military equivalent to the Um Three One seven basically. And it's basically yeah, it's an Lm317 voltage regulator.

Um, but you know it's available in all these Mill standards and stuff like that. So that's why. um yeah, you gotta pay all that sort of coin for that. But look at this hermetically sealed welded ceramic package with the gold wank on it.

Oh, this is absolutely oh oh beautiful. Look at this that's easily worth 675 bucks. That's from Honeywell Aerospace and look, this is like this is like a 7805 voltage regulator. but it's from Honeywell and it's once again, it's one of their high temperature products.

This is why it's so expensive. Uh, you know, up to 225. Um, but it's basically for, you know, down whole wells that can get like really hot down environments down there and stuff like that. like for inside nuclear reactors and inside, you know, like inside combustion engines and stuff like that.

If you need a really high temperature in, you know, a package, then yeah, you're going to pay like from digikey here if you're like 600 bucks or whatever. Um, no, it's not just a 7805. So yeah, like it's It's pretty specialized, but it's basically going to like, I think just operate like a 78.05 although it is a full lead. Joby, but you know, but it's just a linear voltage regulator, right? But that's why it's so pricey.

So there you go. There's some Look Dip package here. Lm72 Classic Lm723 Oh my goodness. 276 bucks.

Are you kidding me? This is not some weird military standard or something. This is just looks like a Bog standard Lm723. but you know if you needed that exact part number there, There you go. That's why.

look. Space Grade: 276 bucks. So the space grade has that specific part number. but if you open up the data sheet, um, it's just like it just looks like the normal data sheet.

Um, nothing about F space. is there anything at a airspace specified requirements? Nope. Nope. Nope.

It's just a regular data sheet. but as you can see there, like it's got very specific, uh, part numbers and stuff like that. and it's yeah. Um, Gen Sp Space grade.

So yeah, it's just a space grade Lm723. And then you've got like weird, um, you know, ceramic packages like this. This is military grade and stuff like that. 136 bucks.

um goodness, what is that you got? What's what is that? I don't know what. pac weird custom holder that is immediate? Look digikey. have a stock of 25 of these and you get 1500 at the factory. Goodness! Once again, ultra low power.

100 milliamp Drop out linear regulate extended product. You know they probably like guarantee you can buy once again 210 degrees celsius and controlled baseline. You know, like ins know, controlled um, specs and stuff like that. But basically they've engineered this ultra low drop out regularly.

You know, once again, downhill drill in high temperature environments, stuff like that so you know it's I guess this video on my title it the exotic. You know the world of exotic components or something like that. perhaps. Anyway, that that's just voltage regulators and you can go check out these for yourself.

Sorting by price is always a a really Schmidt way to find like really obscure parts like this. All right, let's go for practically the most expensive parts that you can buy, which are Fpgas. The high-end Fpgas and digikey aren't going to carry them all. So we'll go into Fpgas here and we'll sort by price.

Shall we? Get ready for it? Hold your breath. A hundred and fifty. That's not 115 bucks. That's a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.

A hundred and fifteen thousand. Obviously they don't hold them in stock. and just imagine the shelf. First one that they have in stock.

Twenty One thousand dollars for a silence jobby. Anyway, once again, Rochester Electronics, um, they're 21. 000 is the most expensive one that they have in stock. So imagine they've got one of them.

So imagine having to go and pick. You know you're working a digi key. You've got to go pick that one part off the shelf and you. You've probably got your order there and you know how much it costs away and you go 21..

this is almost what I make in a year or so. I don't know how much people are digikey making that fifth River Falls there. I don't want any viewers in Fifa River Falls. Um, but yeah, 21 000.

But 115 000 is the most expensive Fpga and that's for it's a Vertex Ultra scale. Okay, so that's more than the Stratix. Um, so yeah. I mean you're just going to get the ultrascale data sheet, You're just going to get the generic stuff.

and they're available in tons of different configurations, so we won't go into it. But yeah, there you go. That's probably. I would guess the most expensive part on digikey would be that Xilinx Ultra Scale Vertex part.

Absolutely incredible. Can we just search integrated circuits like this? Because I don't think so. I don't think you can. No, you've got to choose a category before you can actually go in and like search by price.

so unfortunately we can't if you can. Better that, if you can beat that 115 000 apart on Digikey, leave it in the comments down below. But this is this is great stuff. What? What's the next category? Special purpose Audio.

Do we have any audio wankery in here? Let's go 183 bucks for a once again that's from Rochester. Yeah, they're probably taking their margin on top. Audio Signal Processor. Well, that's a pain in the ass little Bga package.

Isn't it done like that? Oh, there you go. That's like a real old-school um Intel Pixel processor. Wow. What would be the date on that? Yeah, 93.

That's an old like scanned data sheet. There you go. But they still have digi keys. Still have.

They probably had them since the 90s 2060? Oh sorry. Rochester Electronics have them. Um, they. once again, it's a company that specializes in, uh, you know, hard to get parts and stuff like that.

But they've They've got 2 000 of them for 183 bucks a pop. Maybe I do. Good luck. You know you might sell one in the next decade.

Yeah, I think yeah. these are all like really specialized Rochester electronic. Uh, parts look like an ultrasound Vga for example. So you know, an ultrasound processor and interpolation filter.

Um, numerically constant oscillator? What? We've got an oscillator? Oh man. yeah. Once I added this Rochester stuff, we're getting all these obscure Ic voice processor right? These are probably all ancient stuff. This one, though, comes directly from.

You know this is a last time buy. So yeah, good luck. Yep. snap up Eight.

Um, if you've designed this into your product, this bad boy, hit me with your rhythm chip. Hit me. Hit me a pre-configured Dsp system for hearing aids. Oh, what's the most expensive Adc or Dac? Let's find out.

Shall we sort by price? Come on. And sixty 5760 dollars for this bad boy? Analog devices got not in stock, only this five thousand. They got ten in stock from Rochester. I probably should look this up, but I do wonder if Rochester actually have like just given all their stock to Digikey or whether or not if you order it on digikey then Rochester will then ship it to Digikey and then they'll reship it or whatever.

I don't don't know how that works. I've never ordered anything from Rochester through Digikey. Let us know in the comments down below. if you have, what do we get for five thousand dollars? Once again, it looks like an older data sheet.

So you get it. Yeah, 14 and 12 and 14 bit hybrid synchro and synchro resolvers for stuff like that, probably used in some you know, obscure bit of in industrial kit or something like that. And if you need a replacement, you need a replacement. You're going to pay your five thousand dollars for the chip because well, you just need to get your production line back up and running or something like that.

So you know people do actually buy these things. But yeah, I don't think they're um, a danger of uh, selling out all 10 anytime soon. I don't know. someone might do a last buy.

You know, this bad boy here looks important like that's probably designed into some uh, synchro resolver. I was going to say it's probably designed into. Yeah, some gimbal gyro control, some military servo control system, so it's on. You know, some you know, an F-15 jet or something like that and it's designed it in and well, you know.

Yep, they'll pay the money. I do want to know what the most expensive Dsp is, Thank you very much. Seven thousand, Seven Hundred dollars? Yeah, that's like an old school, um, a Dsp one. Yeah, I won't bore you with the data sheet.

I've probably even showed that on various, uh, tear downs and stuff like that. But yep. aha, I think it's it's a marketplace product. If we exclude the marketplace product, I think the Rochester ones are going to go bye-bye So yep, yep, it's gone bye-bye But analog devices? They got non-stock You can't get it, even if you can order it.

I, you know what would be the lead time on that? Do they even give you a lead time? 13 weeks? I guess if you order that from analog devices, will they deliver in 13 weeks? Yeah, don't know. I do want to know what the most expensive microcontroller is. Come on, come on. Everyone's going to leave the joke down below of Stm32s because you can't get them right Unobtainium.

So let's go. Let's go. Let's see, it's an Atmega. An Atmega64 This used to be cheap as chips 3 372 dollars.

like I can understand. like this obscure Ti one here, perhaps. but that's an 18 mega S. So what's a Mega S64? I don't know.

I like. I don't know what variant that is, but come on, come on. you know you gotta order five of them. So you gotta order 15 grand worth before you can get your Avr processor.

Oh, this is good stuff. Like yeah, so you can understand these obscure ones. Once again, Rochester Electronics. Like if you exclude the marketplace then we're going to get a bit more realistic from Did you keep you know I like in some obscure honeywell Joby? Okay, you can understand.

but at Mega? oh, that's great. That's gold. Look at this available in lead frame. Oh, isn't that gorgeous? This is called the Uh lead frame.

The because that's how chips are made in these lead frames. Um, and you? Oh well. presumably they're supplying the lead frame. Don't know why? Because you want to attach it yourself or something like that.

Some manufacturers might want to do that. Some weird military application to a ceramic hybrid base or something like that. perhaps? Yeah, so they supplied you with the lead phrase. but this is how they come with it before they chop the Uh leads off and everything.

So there might be a actually that. that's beyond that. It's got like a that's got like that that's beyond your standard lead frame. That's actually no some obscure mounting that's designed to be mounted.

That's really weird, isn't it? Wow. Wow. Well look at that. Oh, that's just that's just pornographic.

This video is demonetized. Let's have a look at this. Okay, it's an Sm 470, 30, 16, 32 Risk Flash micro controller. So it's kind of oh well.

June? Uh, no. 2009. Okay, so you know it's not that old. Uh, I know, you're young Whipper Snappers thing.

Oh, Available in extreme temperature ranges. Once again. Yeah, okay. but do they have like typical packages available in a package? Yeah, A Cfp.

Okay, it's available in standard Lqfp up to 150. Yeah. and for the higher temperature ranges. Yes, you're going to get these.

Uh, so what is this T-bar package? So we can? Yeah, Okay, so this Lqfp? Yeah, here we go. This is called a Ceramic Quad Flat Pack with Nctb. Okay, um. if if you've used a package like this, please leave it in the comments down below, I would love to know.

Yeah, this is. this is not just your usual lead frame that the chips come. You know before they slice the pins off and then bend them and stuff like that, this is, uh, you know, this is designed to be mounted in for some weird application. So yeah, that's that's really funky, huh? I like that ceramic Quad Flatback with Nctb package.

Typed it into Google. Um, this is the only one that seems relevant. There you go. Ntk Ceramic Co.

Wow. Okay, so they're the ones who supply that, I guess. Weird, please. If you know anything, leave it down below.

Found something really obscure there. That's nice and I know you want to know what's the most expensive logic gate. 1500 bucks for an and gate for an Intel and gate. Oh wow.

come on, come on. they're taking the piss now. Once it like old skewer thing from 94 96 Standard micro circuit drawing 32-bit high integration microprocessor, monolithic silicon. What? What? What sort of data sheet is this? What? Where's my chip? Where's my like, oh whoa.

that's a gate array That's not a gate. It's not an And gate. Um, but I I don't even know what the heck that is that. Now here's is where your money's well spent.

30 gig differential Xor logic gate? Look at this. 770 bucks. Oh, look at this obscure bitter kit. Look at this.

You're not going to put that on a regular Fr4 rubbish. No siree Bob, You want to call up your good mate Rogers and uh, Ultra high speed mixed signal Asic. So this is what's used in. like your real high end.

like keysight, scopes and stuff like that, right? If you just need an exclusive idea for a organizat speed proof of concept, prototyping. Wow. There you go Cml interfaces and stuff. But wow So that that is lit like that is an Xor logic gate.

So do you only get the one gate you get to? You'll get the one. You get the one Xor gate for you. What? 700 bucks or something was it? Wow. But it operates at 30 gig.

There you go. Fascinating. Wow. And I love the package it's in.

It's just oh yeah. it's got some gold wankery happening there. Love it. Yeah, you want that for 770 bucks? This is 50 gig.

Here you go broadband and or Logic eight Though at least this one you might get and and or 25 gig analog bandwidth. Oh yeah, the uh and core. No. So you just do what and or boolean logic so you can choose can you? And there you go.

Yep, you can get a Military 7400 which is of course the Five Four series. Uh, instead of the seven Four series, five fours, the military and you can get us there it is. That's it's basically a seven four Double O. It's it's a five four Ace or it's Ac.

It's that fast Ac. Now that's standard. Uh, rubbish. So and that's 613 bucks.

Nice. But you know that that'll be used in some military bit of kit there. I've repaired military stuff before and they're all conformal coding. You've got to scrape it all off and then you might have to replace this one part and you would have to replace it with the exact part.

There's no, just oh yeah. we can budge in a standard Seven Four Double O. No, you know you would. In a sense.

Why? It's where all your tax dollars is going. Let me tell you. Oh, this is good stuff. What's the most expensive memory? 128 000 for a Dialogue Semiconductor? Is that more? I think that's more than the Fpga Isn't it? I think it's more.

I think we have a new record. Hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars, zero stock. What a bummer. Um, but that's a like what And a four meg bit Sbi quad flash every time from Dialogue.

Come on. Oh My God. This is the ultimate piss. Take the ultimate piss.

Take a 4 meg bit Spi serial flash memory for 128 000. Come on. come on Desto Technologies. Oh please.

What was the lead time on that? Come on. 52-week lead time. Thank you very much. So you pay your under away.

Do you have to pay up front? You pay 125 grand up front for your one chip? Yeah, there's no quantity. Discount The bastards. 128 thousand dollars for 52 weeks lead time and wait for your chip. This is great.

This is perhaps the best video I've ever done. This is just. this is fantastic. Specialized ics.

Okay, so let's go to the weird ass, shall we? 134 bucks for a controller there? What do we got? Oh, only lousy. 15 grand. An Rf spectrometer. Asic? Wow.

Pacific Pacific microchip. Who's specific microchip? That's an interesting Oh, there you go. You've got one of those micro mirror things. Yeah, that's a 1080p Dlp diagonal micro mirror array.

Um, but if somebody you know wants to get their little, uh, their old school projector that they got out of the dumpster back and working, Um, yeah. there you go, you can. You can get that for like you know, 14 grand. 15 grand.

you can get your projector up and running. Uh, Personally, I'd like hunt around the dumpster for another uh unit and try and get a working chip out of it. but geez. Anyway, here's your spectrometer asic.

Wow. that's interesting process at a 5.5 gig bandwidth. My, uh, it's got a variable gain amplifier, six bit Adc Ff based on Poly phase filter and accumulator capable of accumulating 34 seconds of frequency domain data. Wow, Look, wow.

There is a real specialized bit of kit. This is absolutely fascinating. I don't know what that is design is that designed to show you the the heat map or something. It looks like a thermal map or something like that.

But there you go. I don't even get the full data sheet. Probably have to do that Nda rubbish to get the full data sheet for your uh, what is it for your nine thousand dollar part? Yeah, yeah, there's all their micro Intel Xeon. You can get a Zeon processor for two thousand, nine hundred dollars.

You know, if you're desperate enough? Uh, lots of micro mirror stuff. because that's yeah, that's it's. really specific stuff and like and those things that actually that was that might have been the cost when they came out like, you know, who knows, right? That would have been like the very early micro mirror projector technology or whatever. And for all you volt nuts, let's go.

Voltage reference. What is Digikey's most expensive voltage reference? What is the Holy Grail? It's a Tl431. 704 bucks for a Tl431. This is actually the video I was working on.

Like jelly bean parts? Um. Tl431? Uh yeah. Once again, this has got to be like, you know, military? high temperature grade wankery? Um, it's like it's only 2.2 percent accurate. You know it's not accurate, but it's It's a standard 4-3-1 I.

I think we're going to just get the generic data sheet. I'm sure. No, no, it's in die form. Okay, I think yeah.

okay. Die. Okay. You specifically get the die instead of the package.

So yeah, yeah. So if you want a bare die 431, the 431 is literally one of the cheapest jelly bean voltage references on the market. It is the jelly bean part spoiler alert for maybe an upcoming video. But um, yeah, right.

But because you just want the die and that's in your bomb, it's 704. Thank you very much for the bare dye. Oh my goodness. Whereas if you go Tl431tl431, you poor bastard.

If you, uh, design that into your if you designed a diversion into your product, you screwed and and like the cheapest one is like five cents. You know, like in in who's a Diotec semiconductor you learn a new manufacturer every day. Um, you know it's five cents on early on Alibaba or whatever. You get them for like a cent each or something.

Um, yeah. good good old Teal Four Three One Wow. Classic. And they've got like two million.

Like two million in stock, right? Yeah, it's just such a jelly bean part. Anyway, there's plenty of other categories you can go around and have a play yourself. You can go to Mouser or Funnels or any one of your favorite supplies go to Rochester. Do they actually have prices on their website? I don't know, I haven't been there for a long time, but um, yeah, this is just great.

We found some interesting chips here. Absolutely fascinating specialized bits of kit we'll learn about new uh, uh, you know, package real obscure packages that they come in and how some of these components that are designed for specialized applications like high temperature high performance applications. Um, you know, space or you know a couple of that were down ball wells which are real high temperature for drilling and you know you're drilling for oil or whatever and stuff like that. Then yeah.

like real expensive parts. So absolutely fascinating, so I'd love to know. Leave it in the comments down below. What's the most expensive part you've ever specced in component you've specced into a product.

My one is like, I think it was an Fpga and it was like 12 or 14 000 or something like that. Um, which at the time it was. No, it was pretty expensive for the time, but it wasn't the absolute bleeding edge. As you, uh, saw, you can pay over a hundred thousand dollars from the one off.

But yeah, what's the most expensive part you designed in? please? I'd love to know. I hope you enjoyed that video. It's just a little non-sequitur but I thought that was great anyway. So 128 000 was the most expensive part that we could find on digikey here.

If you've got one that's more expensive, leave it in the comments down below. But if you enjoyed it, give it a big thumbs up catch next time you.