1. What changed this week

Week 42 was not a story about one brand taking share. Every brand in the top ten gained search volume, and the gains were tightly clustered: the slowest grew 27.9%, the fastest 39.6%. When the whole list moves together, the driver is usually a market-level event — a pricing cycle, a demand signal, or a broad re-evaluation of supply options.

Total searches across the ten brands reached roughly 4.83 million, up from about 3.6 million the week before. That is a large jump for a single week, and it lines up with the part-level data: four STM32 variants in the most-searched list, diode and ESD parts leading price increases, and DDR inventory building.

The ranking order itself barely moved. TI, ADI and ST have held the top three positions for most of the quarter, which suggests the list reflects structural design activity rather than a weekly spike. The interesting information is in the gaps between brands, not in the order.

2. The top 10 brands

The distribution is heavily skewed. TI alone accounts for about 35% of the searches across the ten brands, and the top three account for roughly 65%. For buyers, that concentration is useful: three supplier relationships cover two-thirds of the market's attention.

3. Three demand clusters

Control and compute: ST and Microchip. ST's top five searched parts were all STM32 microcontrollers, led by STM32F405RGT6 at 16,565 searches — far above any other part in the dataset. Microchip's list was all 8-bit AVR and interface parts, led by ATMEGA128A-AU. The two brands are not competing for the same design; they are competing for different generations of the same board.

Analog and power: TI and ADI. TI's top part was a power module, and ADI's was a precision op-amp, followed by an RF transceiver, a power module and two RS-485 transceivers. That mix is characteristic of instrumentation and industrial communication rather than consumer hardware.

Discretes and protection: onsemi, Diodes, Nexperia, Vishay, Infineon. These five brands cluster around the same small set of commodity parts — 2N7002, 1N4148, BAT54, BAV99, MMBT3904. When five brands' search lists converge on the same part numbers, the market is signalling a generic, multi-source requirement rather than a design-specific one.

Infineon is the outlier. Its top searched part, TDA21590, fell 10.07% week over week, and its second and third entries also declined. That is the only brand in the top ten where the leading part lost search volume, and it is worth watching whether it is a one-week pause or the start of a rotation toward gate drivers in other families.

Where the lists converge

The most useful signal in the brand data is not a ranking — it is repetition. The same small set of part numbers appears in five different brands' top-five lists, which tells you the requirement is generic and multi-sourceable.

This convergence has a practical consequence. When five brands are searched for the same part, a buyer has real substitution leverage: any qualified source can cover the requirement, so price and availability decide rather than brand preference. It also means the price spikes in these families are more likely to be short-lived, because supply can rotate between manufacturers.

That convergence also explains why cost-effective equivalents keep appearing in searches. When a commodity diode or small-signal transistor is tight, buyers look for a drop-in replacement rather than a redesign, and high-volume catalog brands enter the shortlist. Tech public, ranked tenth, is a good example: its AMS1117 and small-signal lines are used as cost-down substitutes where the specification allows. The rule is the same as any substitution — match package, pinout and voltage class, then confirm against the datasheet before design-in.

The opposite is true for the MCU and speciality parts. STM32F405RGT6 appears in only one brand's list, and no other manufacturer can be substituted without a redesign. That is where allocation risk actually lives.

Two brands deserve a note because they sit outside their expected peer group. Tech public ranks tenth on search volume but holds 229.2 million units, the sixth-largest position in the list, and its top searched part is an AMS1117-3.3 linear regulator rather than a discrete. That profile is typical of a high-volume, price-sensitive catalog line.

Diodes ranks fifth with 264.6 million units and 408 stocked part numbers. Its top searched part, BSS138W-7-F, more than doubled week over week (+103.75%), which is the largest single-part gain in the dataset. Small MOSFETs are used as level shifters on almost every mixed-voltage board, so a jump here usually tracks board-level production rather than a specific end product.

4. What we hold

Our inventory across these ten brands totals about 3.89 billion units. The table below shows the deepest line for each brand, which is a better indicator of what we can ship immediately than the total.

Two things stand out. First, the deepest lines are commodity parts that appear in almost every design: logic gates, small-signal transistors, switching diodes. That is deliberate — it is the inventory that lets a buyer avoid a line-down event during a BOM shortage.

Second, the brands with the most search volume do not have the deepest stock in their hot parts. ST's searches are dominated by STM32 MCUs, but its deepest line is a 2N7002 transistor. TI's top search is a power module, while its deepest stock is a logic gate. This mismatch is normal for a distributor that stocks broad commodity coverage, and it is exactly where a sourcing conversation adds value.

5. The coverage gap worth closing

Microchip has the smallest stock position of the ten (49.3 million units) while its top searched part is an 8-bit MCU up 40% week over week. That combination — rising demand against a thin position — is the most likely place for lead times to extend first.

Infineon shows the opposite pattern: 84.9 million units and declining search on its top part. That is a brand where a buyer has room to negotiate, especially on gate drivers and discrete power.

Nexperia's stock rose 3.84% week over week, the largest gain among the ten, and its top searched part (TL431AIDBZR) is a voltage reference rather than a commodity diode. That is a small but useful signal that demand is moving toward adjustable references and regulation, not only protection.

From search to order

Brand search does not convert directly into purchase orders, and that gap is worth understanding before reading too much into a weekly ranking. A procurement team searching a brand is usually doing one of four things: validating a second source, checking whether a specific part is still active, comparing a quote against an alternative, or researching a replacement after an EOL notice.

Only the last two convert quickly. Second-source validation and activity checks take weeks, because they involve datasheet review, sample qualification and sometimes a board respin. That lag is why a sustained rise in brand search over three or four weeks is more meaningful than a single spike.

For suppliers, the practical implication is that brand-level traffic should be met with information, not just price: part availability, package options, cross-reference data and documentation. For buyers, the implication is the reverse — a brand page that shows stock and alternatives is worth more than one that shows only a price.

6. What buyers should do

The simplest operational conclusion: use the commodity depth for immediate needs, and use the search data to anticipate which premium lines will tighten next. The two are not in the same place this week.

7. FAQ

Why did every brand grow at once?

That pattern usually reflects a market-level trigger — pricing news, an allocation rumour, or a broad re-evaluation of supply options — rather than ten independent demand events.

Does a high search count mean a brand is short?

No. Search measures sourcing interest, often from buyers looking for alternatives. Shortage shows up in part-level inventory and price data first.

Is the stock figure per brand or across all parts?

It is the total on-hand quantity we hold for that brand across all part numbers, not a single line. The second table shows the deepest individual line.

Which brand has the tightest coverage?

Microchip: the smallest stock position (49.3 million units) with rising 8-bit MCU demand.

How often is this published?

Weekly, covering the previous Monday-to-Sunday window, alongside the part-number and category reports.

8. Sources

• Texas Instruments portfolio: ti.com
• Analog Devices portfolio: analog.com
• Infineon power and discrete portfolio: infineon.com
• Weekly brand data: marketplace report for week 42, October 12–18, 2026.