The MMA8652 chip is available in very small DFN 10 pin 2mm * 2mm package and is available at bare minimum price of Rs.60/- (1 USD) even in small numbers,
Has two nice interrupt outputs which can be used to trigger the MCU on motion event with adjustable thresholds.
The device is extremely low power and well designed and includes lot of other features like Pedometer function for fitness tracking and Free fall detection etc.
Being said that, Everything was going well and i had selected this part after the NXP Freescale merger but suddenly the part was out of stock everywhere and the lead times are so huge like 13 weeks, 18 weeks etc. Which means if i place order now i will get the parts after 3 to 4 months, which is ridiculous. Having no other option i had placed a back order with element 14 which had lead time of 3 months. I had paid for 50 no’s of chips.
I was supposed to get parts by end of May 2018, but there is no sign of it. Still the lead time has went up by few more months. Things are not OK on NXP side. Looks like the part is out of production but NXP is not ready to accept it openly. Their support team has no proper answers, they themselves have no clue.
Adding to the grief, the element 14 people are not responding to mails, there is no option to cancel the back order online. The support team doesn’t even acknowledge the mail.
I ended up with a bad experience with element 14 and learnt the lesson, never to place any back orders for parts whose availability is uncertain.
For now, i have started using the MMA8452 part which seems to be available for now. I have re-spinned the design for using this part now. But soon will be moving on to the ST Microelectronics parts, may be the LIS3xx series, they look promising!. And besides that, ST always provides great variety of options with footprint compatible parts and i am sure they are not going out of business or being bought anytime sooner 😛
For the current VALTRACK-V2 design , I procured the parts from Jotrin.com at a very high price of 5.5 USD or Rs.400/- because the part is in very high demand due to no availability.
Hoping, Soon the parts will be available in stock everywhere and NXP will not longer mess the customers projects and lose reputation.
Update 08-Jan-2020: The parts are back in stock now. 🙂
