You're looking at proportional economics and not absolutes. For example, a PIC project that cost $8 to build 5 years ago now costs $2 and is functionally superior, while average income has still risen. So, just because an MCU that cost $8 5 years ago now costs ~$2 doesn't mean that the cost of decoupling has *risen*...it's still dropped significantly. It hasn't dropped inline with the cost of MCUs, for sure...but that's a somewhat meaningless and arbitrary metric, don't you think? Kind of like me saying that compared to the cost of oranges, capacitors are still expensive. AND...if you're paying US$0.15 for .1uF caps...let me know and I'll source you cheaper ones. Even my local electronics retail store sells single units cheaper than that OTC! -marc On 15/6/03 00:58, "William Chops Westfield" wrote: > The cost of adding decoupling caps to a design is negligible...you can't > argue you did it for cost reasons anymore. > > Ok, how do you figure that? Silicon has gotten much cheaper ($1 > microcontrollers), but the price of 0.1uF decoupling caps is still up at > close to $0.1 each, at least in hobbyists quantities from hobbyist dealers. > To me, that means the cost of decoupling caps has become MORE significant. > > Of course, some of this seems to be "marketing." Good deals on 0.1uF caps > are hard to find BECAUSE there is a high demand for them, BECAUSE that's > what all the published hobbyist projects use for decoupling. Pick an > oddball value like .039uF or .047uF, and it will probably still work fine > for most bypass applications, and you're more likely to find a good deal. > (Jameco: .047 disk: $0.07, .1 disk: $0.15. Of course, also .1 mono $0.07, > so it's not as bad as it could be.) > > BillW > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList > mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu > -------------------------------------------------- Marc Nicholas Geekythings Inc. C/416.543.4896 UNIX, Database, Security and Networking Consulting -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu