Thanks to the people who answered this question! I was trying to figure out if it was better to have a higher or lower ppm and a quick web search landed me here. It's extremely frustrating when I do a google search, find a topic asking what I'm trying to find out and find some idiot telling the OP to just "do a google search".
SMH.
If you google "ppm resistor" and not just "ppm" you land in exactly the right place. Intelligent search is
knowing which extra keywords to add for context.
Old topic indeed, but someone who does not recognise "ppm" is definitely not an engineer.
(That is not a put-down, just a simple practicality. 
A step on the way to becoming an engineer.)
Googleing ppm resistor is literally what brought me to this page lol
abishur:
Thanks to the people who answered this question! I was trying to figure out if it was better to have a higher or lower ppm and a quick web search landed me here. It's extremely frustrating when I do a google search, find a topic asking what I'm trying to find out and find some idiot telling the OP to just "do a google search".
Clearly then in this case, since you found this thread via a Google search the 'idiot' was correct.
srnet:
Clearly then in this case, since you found this thread via a Google search the 'idiot' was correct.
Except not. Far too often when googling for an answer I find a thread with my exact question where the only answer is "google it". It's not a helpful answer as many people who are asking the question have ALREADY googled and found nothing. If you don't want to answer, fine, but it's condescending, unhelpful, and a waste of everyone's time to respond with "google it".
Had only the idiot responded, then this would have been just another unhelpful dead end thread. Thankfully, there were people on the thread who took the time answer the actual question he had, not just "What does ppm mean", but "how does it impact the resistor/why should I pick one value for ppm over the other?"
The bottom line with resistor temperature coefficient is that if you donât know what it is, it doesnât matter to you or your circuit.
When you enter the world of precision resistors, the resistance absolute value tolerance is also specified specified in PPM. 100 PPM (+/- 0.01%) and lower tolerances are available, these class of parts can have TCRâs (temperature coefficient of resistance) as low as 1 PPM.
The primary resistance standards used in calibration/standards laboratory settings have absolute resistance values that drift less than one PPM per year. A common primary standard resistor, the EIT Labs SR104 10K, is about 25x20x30 CM and they sell new for about $8,000, used on eBay > $3,000 US. Their TCR is less than 0.1 PPM per degree C.