Is the die form dying?

Hello everyone,

recently I talked to a manufacturer of optohybrids and was told that
they often have difficulties to get certain parts in die form. A reason
could be that nowadays SMT is preferred, so instead of an optohybrid one
should design a photodiode and some SMDs for procurement's sake.

Is this true? Is a design using die forms really obsolete? After reading
http://www.memsinfo.jp/whitepaper/WP26_FMS.pdf I get the impression that
some manufacturers really have certain concerns here.

I wouldn't mind switching to SMT, though I'm a little afraid of noise.
Does anyone here have similar experience?

Best regards
Steffen

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