Hercules to be Discontinued without Notice?

Was that in some legal fine print or a different doc?

Hi Anthony: As best I can remember, it was specific wording placed on the footer of every page of some document. I don't know if it was PDF data sheet, product literature, eval kit, or web-site part availability. I don't think it was a legal document. The words went something like "because this is a new part, it is subject to discontinuance without notice". I found it while reading about the Hercules RM57 I think, while I was collecting information. When I saw this footer, I thought to myself, "well, I would not have chosen this part but we are stuck with it for now until it is discontinued", however, I failed to save the document or page where it appeared. I have been searching for it again, but I have not found the document yet. I will continue searching. Perhaps somebody can find it and let me know.

Gary,

What I meant by legal 'fine print' for example is something like this:

Or maybe this:

Are these the types of things you remember seeing?

Note that the 1st is from a production datatsheet [part has been released for production] and it says there is a process for discontinuing a product following a JEDEC standard. 

The 2nd is from a datasheet for a part not yet released to production.  It might be sampling with a 'TMP' or 'XRM' type part #.   For those of course there's risk to design it into your system because you're doing so before the part is production qualified.   Something might go wrong with the design and maybe it'll never be qualified.  Or maybe we'll decide that some product variant doesn't belong in the roadmap for some reason.   Until the part is production qualified - yes all bets are off and this is making sure you know that.

But I think now you'll find all the Hercules parts are at the 'Production Data' stage of the datasheet and you won't find this 2nd more severe statement anymore. 

Anyway if this is all you saw ...  I don't want to say 'it doesn't mean anything' because sure it means what it says in plain text.  But what you asked about ... not even close.

If you saw something 'else' then it could be a false rumor.. would like to know about that.

Hi Anthony:

What I saw was NOT the legal disclaimer like you have sampled.

I now believe that it was the second sample. What caught my attention was the date of 2016, because it seemed like the latest document was stating possible discontinuance.

I have checked the Product Review document that I saved for the RM57L843 device and I see this disclaimer as well. My document footer has the date information as: "SPNS215B-FEBRUARY 2014-REVISED JANUARY 2016"

So, I think you have resolved the issue, except I thought this part was in production at the moment, but I guess it is still sampling.

Thanks,
Garry.

Hi Gary,

Super, so hope you understand the nuance of the 2nd sample...  And that it really means a very new product still in development (with associated risks) not one near the end of it's life span.

And.. if you check the ti.com website - you'll now see that there is an *updated* JUNE2016 datasheet for RM57L843 and it is now a production data status,  no more product preview --- so the product preview notice is gone now and all you have is the normal 'important notice' at the end of the doc which is the standard notice on *every* datasheet.

-Anthony