Cheap Microcontrollers

In article <46bc2402$1@clear.net.nz>, Jim Granville 
<no.spam@designtools.maps.co.nz> writes
>Chris Hills wrote:
>> In article <46bb6fab$1@clear.net.nz>, Jim Granville 
>><no.spam@designtools.maps.co.nz> writes
>>
>>> Chris Hills wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <xnd4xwvmb1.fsf@delorie.com>, DJ Delorie 
>>>><dj@delorie.com>  writes
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Don't be silly... on 50-100K quantities he needs a proper disci. Not a
>>>>>> catalogue disti
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, duh.  I don't have access to large quantity channels, so I can
>>>>> only point to digikey as a reference, and showing the digikey bulk
>>>>> cost at least shows that it's far cheaper than other chips, close to
>>>>> his price range, and something to investigate.
>>>>
>>>>   The Digi price gives no indication on pricing on 50-100K from a 
>>>>"proper"  disti.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's a strange claim - "no indication" ? - so you are saying it 
>>>could be MORE than the  digikey price ?!?
>>>
>>> What about the Chip Manufacturer press releases - are they also
>>> 'no indication of pricing' ?
>>>
>>> Freescale's press release says this :
>>> "Suggested resale pricing for 10,000-piece quantities starts at 43 
>>>cents (USD)."
>>>
>>> ( for this family DigiKey mentions 43.2c/2500 )
>>>
>>> Microchip's press release mentions "49c/10K PIC10F200"
>>>
>>> Digikey might take issue with "proper" disti comment :)
>>>
>>> So, with the right care, you can see Digikey's price actually shows
>>> a very good correlation with the Chip Vendors press release claims.
>>   So Digi is the Recommended Retail Price. This is not the same thing 
>>as  the price from a disti.
>
>I presume you meant resale, not retail ?
>No one has mentioned retail, and 2500pcs is not a retail column.
>
>So, if Freescale say Resale price is 43c/10k, and Digikey have 
>43.2c/2.5k, what price DO you expect from your disti
>(who is, guess what.... a reseller!) ?
>

No idea. Depends on what I can haggle. In many cases you get free tools 
:-)

-- 
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Zach_G wrote:
> Hello there, I'm looking for a very cheap microcontroller indeed. Price
> point is under 0.35 USD, quantities of 50-100k for first production runs.
> Application is an RGB LED controller that accepts color information over
> asynchronous serial communication.  I crammed that in an attiny11 pretty
> easily, but Atmel is discontinuing that model and replacing it with the
> 2-3X as expensive attiny13!  While it's nice that the attiny13 has alot of
> fun peripherals, all I really need is a moderately fast (2-4MIPS) cpu core
> and a handful of I/O.  I've been trying to get some quotes from the major
> asian companies, Winbond, Sonix, Elan, but getting a response from them is
> like e-mailing with a fencepost.  It's like these companies don't even want
> to make a sale.  So now I find myself turning to the online community for
> advice and suggestions.
> 
> Also, is it possible to get manufacturers to supply dies for chip on board
> manufacturing?  I bought some cool RGB fading leds that incorporate some
> sort of controller into the 5mm LED package, and it would be cool if we
> could do a similar thing.
> 
> Thanks for any assistance you can provide?
> 
> 

This will do everything you are asking for:
http://www.colorkinetics.com/oem/chips/chromasic/

Martin

Wow, quite an informative topic here.

If I may, common sense tells me that the price comparisons of well-
established parts from a catalog are going to be reflective of the
price that can be negotiated for larger sales.  Economically, every
manufacturer and resaler has its costs to recoup in addition to the
profit it makes from a sale.  Purchasing larger quantities reduces the
markup needed for the sale to still be profitable, but the underlying
manufacturing and distributing costs remain.  In the long run, there
will only be so much of the profit margin that can be squeezed out of
the total cost.  Assuming these margins are similar between
manufacturers, then the catalog price should give an indication of
which part is cheaper.  But that's just common sense, experience seems
to say otherwise.

I'm digging alot of the new products that have a trimmable internal
oscillator.  The added cost of these parts makes up for the fact that
it would be easy to precisely tune the cpu clock at runtime for
asynchronous communication instead of needing an external ceramic
resonator.  The RS08 from Freescale is approaching the price point in
catalogue distribution, too bad it's limited to 40ma max.  Not quite
enough for 3 high brigtness LED's.

Martin, as for the Color Kinetics chromasic chip, we actually looked
at using it a while ago until we found out they were charging $3 a
chip.  Why pay this much when I can make the same effect from a 30
cent micro :).

Zach_G wrote:
> Wow, quite an informative topic here.
> 
> If I may, common sense tells me that the price comparisons of well-
> established parts from a catalog are going to be reflective of the
> price that can be negotiated for larger sales.  Economically, every
> manufacturer and resaler has its costs to recoup in addition to the
> profit it makes from a sale.  Purchasing larger quantities reduces the
> markup needed for the sale to still be profitable, but the underlying
> manufacturing and distributing costs remain.  In the long run, there
> will only be so much of the profit margin that can be squeezed out of
> the total cost.  Assuming these margins are similar between
> manufacturers, then the catalog price should give an indication of
> which part is cheaper.  But that's just common sense, experience seems
> to say otherwise.

Experience 5-10 years ago perhaps, the movement today is different.

If you look at newest-release parts going into the catalog companies,
they DO have high-volume columns, and the IC vendors DO realise MANY 
designers eyeball those, and so real care is taken to have them mean 
something. The WEB is a powerful sales force.

I've even seen a couple have 'promo releases' where the low qty parts,
are sold at 1000+ prices. Probably that is subsidised by the IC 
supplier. Also, many samples are now provided via the catalogue pathway,
and again, there must be a payment from IC supplier for that saving
in not needing a samples dept.

eg Go to Digikey, and search for "W79E8", and you will see low winbond 
prices given (no stock) - so here, Digikey is effectively running a 
price-book service for Winbond.

> 
> I'm digging alot of the new products that have a trimmable internal
> oscillator.  The added cost of these parts makes up for the fact that
> it would be easy to precisely tune the cpu clock at runtime for
> asynchronous communication instead of needing an external ceramic
> resonator.  The RS08 from Freescale is approaching the price point in
> catalogue distribution, too bad it's limited to 40ma max.  Not quite
> enough for 3 high brigtness LED's.

You could parallel more pins, or add external drivers ?
If you choose a LIN style comms, then the tolerance drops.

-jg

On Aug 10, 9:25 am, Zach_G <gof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow, quite an informative topic here.
>
> If I may, common sense tells me that the price comparisons of well-
> established parts from a catalog are going to be reflective of the
> price that can be negotiated for larger sales.  Economically, every
> manufacturer and resaler has its costs to recoup in addition to the
> profit it makes from a sale.  Purchasing larger quantities reduces the
> markup needed for the sale to still be profitable, but the underlying
> manufacturing and distributing costs remain.  In the long run, there
> will only be so much of the profit margin that can be squeezed out of
> the total cost.  Assuming these margins are similar between
> manufacturers, then the catalog price should give an indication of
> which part is cheaper.  But that's just common sense, experience seems
> to say otherwise.
>
> I'm digging alot of the new products that have a trimmable internal
> oscillator.  The added cost of these parts makes up for the fact that
> it would be easy to precisely tune the cpu clock at runtime for
> asynchronous communication instead of needing an external ceramic
> resonator.

Most uC can do serial port with internal RC clock.  How fast are you
running the serial port.  Upto 19K baud should not be a problem.

> The RS08 from Freescale is approaching the price point in
> catalogue distribution, too bad it's limited to 40ma max.  Not quite
> enough for 3 high brigtness LED's.

Don't skim on a penny transistor, if you are using high power LEDs.

>
> Martin, as for the Color Kinetics chromasic chip, we actually looked
> at using it a while ago until we found out they were charging $3 a
> chip.  Why pay this much when I can make the same effect from a 30
> cent micro :).

> Most uC can do serial port with internal RC clock.  How fast are you
> running the serial port.  Upto 19K baud should not be a problem.

Well 108K baud is the minimum.  For 8 bit transmission with start and
stop the maximum theoretical timing error between sender and reciever
is +-4%.  Throw in a long noisy capacitive cable and reliable
transmission timing error should be +-1% by rule of thumb.

> Don't skim on a penny transistor, if you are using high power LEDs.

Aye, this is an alternative if an entire SOC isn't feasible.

On Aug 9, 11:26 pm, linnix <m...@linnix.info-for.us> wrote:
> On Aug 9, 2:01 pm, DJ Delorie <d...@delorie.com> wrote:
>
> > Chris Hills <ch...@phaedsys.org> writes:
> > > Don't be silly... on 50-100K quantities he needs a proper disci. Not a
> > > catalogue disti
>
> > Well, duh.  I don't have access to large quantity channels, so I can
> > only point to digikey as a reference, and showing the digikey bulk
> > cost at least shows that it's far cheaper than other chips, close to
> > his price range, and something to investigate.  It also provides a
> > link to the datasheet, so he can see if the chip meets his technical
> > needs.
>
> He should really check with the right distributor.  Digikey might have
> 24K of them.  When they are gone, he might not be able to get any
> more.  Would you design for 100K based on digikey alone?

If going the PIC route then I'd suggest going directly to Microchip.
Especially if you're in the US - shipping is relatively cheap. The
majority of their controllers can be bought from Microchip Direct even
in single chip quantities. Only the rarer ones need bulk quantities.
But the OP is asking about bulk quantities so I'd recommend going
directly to Microchip: www.microchipdirect.com
at the very least it gives you a good idea on prices.

The very cheap ones, in bulk quantities:

PIC10F200 , 0.25k flash - $0.39
PIC10F202 , 0.5k flash  - $0.41
PIC16F54  , 0.5k flash  - $0.37
PIC16F57  , 2k flash    - $0.49
PIC12F508 , 0.5k flash  - $0.47
PIC12F509 , 1k flash    - $0.50


One nice thing I like about PICs is that they tend to hang around a
lot longer than other controllers. I started on the PIC16F84 long
before Atmel introduced their AVRs and while most of the earlier
generation AVRs have been discontinued the PIC16F84 is still around.

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:06:59 -0700, "slebetman@yahoo.com" <slebetman@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Aug 9, 11:26 pm, linnix <m...@linnix.info-for.us> wrote:
>> On Aug 9, 2:01 pm, DJ Delorie <d...@delorie.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Chris Hills <ch...@phaedsys.org> writes:
>> > > Don't be silly... on 50-100K quantities he needs a proper disci. Not a
>> > > catalogue disti
>>
>> > Well, duh.  I don't have access to large quantity channels, so I can
>> > only point to digikey as a reference, and showing the digikey bulk
>> > cost at least shows that it's far cheaper than other chips, close to
>> > his price range, and something to investigate.  It also provides a
>> > link to the datasheet, so he can see if the chip meets his technical
>> > needs.
>>
>> He should really check with the right distributor.  Digikey might have
>> 24K of them.  When they are gone, he might not be able to get any
>> more.  Would you design for 100K based on digikey alone?
>
>If going the PIC route then I'd suggest going directly to Microchip.
>Especially if you're in the US - shipping is relatively cheap. The
>majority of their controllers can be bought from Microchip Direct even
>in single chip quantities. Only the rarer ones need bulk quantities.
>But the OP is asking about bulk quantities so I'd recommend going
>directly to Microchip: www.microchipdirect.com
>at the very least it gives you a good idea on prices.
>
>The very cheap ones, in bulk quantities:
>
>PIC10F200 , 0.25k flash - $0.39
>PIC10F202 , 0.5k flash  - $0.41
>PIC16F54  , 0.5k flash  - $0.37
>PIC16F57  , 2k flash    - $0.49
>PIC12F508 , 0.5k flash  - $0.47
>PIC12F509 , 1k flash    - $0.50
>

Their programming service is also pretty cheap. 

Huzzah, Sonix has a 30 cent chip that fits the bill.  Thanks for all
your help everybody.

Zach_G <goffzh@gmail.com> writes:
> Huzzah, Sonix has a 30 cent chip that fits the bill.  Thanks for all
> your help everybody.

So, satisfy our curiosity...  which one?