mcu price !!! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: 5282
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 06:28:39 pm
content: st and nxp and atmel make cortex-m4 and cortex-m7 microcontrollerprice >6$and at this price i can buy cortex-a8 1ghz + sdram chipswhy they manufacturing cortex-m4 and cortex-m7 at this price and i can buy high performance cortex-a8 1ghz cpu at same price?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 06:45:20 pm
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 11, 2016, 06:28:39 pmBecause you will also need PMIC for A8 and at least 8-layer board, which are expensive. You will also get higher power consumption, which is not going to work for a lot of systems.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 06:58:43 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on October 11, 2016, 06:51:05 pmThe fact someone has own fabs does not mean their chips are built there. Especially if those chips have small feature size. IMO their cortex M chips are built at either Globalfoundries or TSMC.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 07:04:05 pm
content: Also, what is the source for your pricing? I assume you are looking at some random A8 chip on alibaba and comparing it to DigiKey single quantity pricing?That's not how you price a real product.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 07:11:05 pm
content: You can get Allwinner H3 boards for 8$ in singles, it is indeed getting a bit silly.It's a shame there are no RTDM drivers (for the realtime co-kernel for Xenomai Linux). It would be an excellent alternative to the more powerful microcontrollers for hobbyists.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 07:29:32 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on October 11, 2016, 07:15:16 pmProbably the lithography (ie. dual patterning is no longer enough). FD-SOI can scale down below 28nm while staying planar.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 07:42:46 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on October 11, 2016, 07:15:16 pmWhat makes you think that NXP-Freescale have an in house 28nm SOI process? I thought they used the STM process, running in a foundry.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 07:48:39 pm
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 11, 2016, 06:28:39 pmVery few Cortex-M4 or M7 devices sell for more than about $3 in quantity, and they need to have lots of stuff on the chip to be that expensive. Most are below $2 and many below $1.Things can look skewed to the casual observer, as no MCU supplier publishes serious (i.e. high volume) prices, and all people see is inflated small volume prices at DigiKey and their ilk. The Cortex-A series market has created a different dynamic, where small quantities are available for a relatively small multiplier over the high volume price.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 07:55:46 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on October 11, 2016, 07:11:05 pmCan you get it for the next 5-10 years?Quote from: Marco on October 11, 2016, 07:11:05 pmWhy do you care about the price this much as a hobbyist?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 08:14:07 pm
content: I know linux, being able to ssh into a familiar environment is nice. Alas, the Pi's of the world are very far removed from real time.

author: JS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2016, 11:47:34 pm
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 11, 2016, 06:28:39 pmWhy would someone make cats if there are cheaper dogs?Other than that, µC and µP are different type of beasts, for different purposes, price and computational power aren't the only two factors, as mentioned power consumption, connectivity, ease of use, are other factors to consider. You may find and M3 or M4 under the seat of your car just to adjust the position, it has the required peripherals in the chip, probably could be done with an M0 but for some reason they found M4 a better option, for example already used 40 times in the same car but the M0 won't cut most of those applications.JS

author: 5282
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 03:55:45 pm
content: QuoteLQFP-176 a13 cortex-a8 1ghz cpu can be routed in 2layer diy pcb at very low costa13+pmic+sdram+nandflash cost will be under 6$ in 5pc minimum quantitybut cortex-m4 will cost 6$ in 5pc minimum quantityquad core cortex-a7 development board will cost 10$ at 1pccortex-m4 development board will cost 15$ at 1pc

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 03:58:01 pm
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 12, 2016, 03:55:45 pmAnd how in the hell do you expect to connect DDR3 on a 2-layer PCB?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 04:37:30 pm
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 12, 2016, 03:55:45 pmNo, it can not.Also, what chip are we talking about?Show us the source of your pricing information.

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 06:22:05 pm
content: The lowest I have seen was an iMX233 in a 4 layer 5x5cm pcb, and that is already bottom of the barrel..

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 06:33:01 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on October 12, 2016, 06:29:19 pmOk, that's $4.99 + $3.00 Shipping == $7.99. Plus some sketchy ebay sale that can go away tomorrow. EDIT: this seller combines shipping, so if you buy more than one, you save some money. But even at $5, it is barely competitive with MCUs.What about flash, RAM and PMIC?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 06:49:57 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on October 12, 2016, 06:48:02 pmOk, so what you are saying is that you can potentially assemble something from trash, that costs the same as Cortex-M7 MCU from DigiKey. If you want to do that - go ahead, but count me out.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 08:38:06 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on October 12, 2016, 06:29:19 pmSure, it's only a 96-ball BGA. Totally do that with a pillar drill and some rivets.

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2016, 08:47:10 pm
content: forget BGA and 2 layer boards... with 2 layers you can either fan-out the signals or provide power with decoupling but not both at the same time

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2016, 07:25:36 am
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 11, 2016, 06:28:39 pmCheapestActiveA7 I can find in digikey is 5$ per 1k. Excluding memory. (MCIMX6G)Cheapest M4 I can find is 2.5$ per 1k. (LPC54101) Which has internal memories.They're both BGA, since that second best package in terms of pricing. (chip scale being the best, basically bga without epoxy)

author: JS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2016, 09:46:56 pm
content: Quote from: ataradov on October 12, 2016, 06:49:57 pmThat! Are we seriously discussing this?JS

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 07:41:52 am
content: When there is demand for something it would be stupid not to sell at the highest price possible! So it's the demand for these Cortex M3-M7 devices that would determine their higher prices. and if you yourself had the silicon fab you would try your best to sell them as high as possible.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 07:55:35 am
content: Fully loaded board 20 bucks

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 07:57:31 am
content: Then there is the support, if you look at the higher frequency higher powered arm cores you see there are NDA's non existing datasheets/ref manuals for anyone else.Those chips are for mass producers that take quantities around 100's of k's per year and they get their own product manager/ service engineer contact to help develop the products.If you are a small company/ single person that wants freely available datasheets/ref manuals then you have little choice.Still I think the pricing quoted is not representative for the real world prices you pay when negotiating. The truth can not (always) be googled.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 11:40:38 am
content: ARM M3, Wifi + antenna, 512K Ram, 1M Flash, $2.7 shipped in quantity of 10.https://www.pine64.org/?product=padi-iot-stamp

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2016, 12:58:19 pm
content: Quote from: 5282 on October 12, 2016, 03:55:45 pmCortex M4 is free for 5pc.Dont confuse digikey pricing with the real world pricing.