The need to find alternative electronic components can be motivated for a number of reasons. How you can look for them, and to what extent alternate components are needed will help determine your methods and your urgency.

The two main motivators for finding alternatives are money and replacing discontinued parts. Ultimately, it all comes down to money and the replacement costs of components. The urgency of the need becomes heightened when a company is about to stop manufacturing certain essential electronic components you may need to maintain your products that use them.

Sadly, yet realistically, obsolescence is built into many of our products. As a University of Maryland study notes:

“Consequently, many of the electronic parts that compose a product have a life cycle that is significantly shorter than the life cycle of the product. The part becomes obsolete when it is no longer manufactured, either because demand has dropped to low enough levels that it is not practical for manufacturers to continue to make it, or because the materials or technologies necessary to produce it are no longer available”. 

So you need to know what to do when a component is no longer being made. Sometimes, the original manufacturer will stop making the component but other companies make a part that will work in its place. Finding alternative parts can be difficult but there are a couple of websites that now keep track of soon to be discontinued, and no longer being made parts, that give options for workable component replacements. Much better than having to completely rebuild your product, or having to answer to your buyers when a small part could keep a major expenditure machine running.

There are also times when generic equivalents are made and the replacement part is much less expensive. Here you need to know the quality of the alternate parts. There are some arguments for sticking to the brand component - but pricing is a factor that can counter the argument.

Silicon Experts even has a tool to help forecast the end of life of components. Either way it pays to keep track of the parts you use. Companies like OnlineComponents.com actually make major buys of discontinuing components because the company has been around for years and became aware of the need and addressed it.