Topic changed to PIC About 10 years ago I sat down and did a broad analysis of the microcontroller industry. The question was, which line of processors would give my company the most bang for the buck? The criterion were: Cost per performance, Depth of technical support, parts availability and lack of "allocation"*. I looked at a number of companies, got volume quotes for similar scopes of features. Yes, there are cheaper micros available, usually masked rom 4 bit parts. Ever tried to use one? Ever tried to get samples? Ever tried to read the data sheet? Ever seen a factory rep? Does the Pope ever bow to Mecca? Unless you know technical Japanese, you are screwed with these parts. There are a lot of micro companies out there that don't have any tech staff out in the field, don't have a PIClist, don't have a quarter million hobbyists pumping out designs with them. ST for example, makes a pretty good line of micros with some signifigant cost advantages. They were #2 or #3 on my list. Cost, of course, is the cost at the volumes my company does, and those numbers are big, some products in the millions. If you want an idea what prices look like on this end of the telescope, just take Digikey's 100 piece price and divide by four as a rough guess. There were a number of other companies considered. For my criteria, I decided Microchip was a good horse to bet on and I have never regretted it. There is also the investment of my own time. Each micro has different quirks and a different learning curve. Each one has its own development tools, languages (all "claiming" to be ANSI compliant C - HUH!) I wanted to pile on to one of them and get good at it. I still want to branch out and learn some other microcontroller architectures. For instance, there are some lines that have a better selection of USB support. And, though it is a neat trick to put a 16F PIC on ethernet, really there are other micros that are a lot better at this sort of trick. This conclusion would be different in a different industry - I am down in the mud with $12 appliances, if you want to design internet gizmos or things with video screens this is the wrong train to hop. *Allocation: The practice in electronics of limiting the amount of supply of a certain component and then preferentially selling the scarce supply to the largest customers. Often smaller customers are promised parts, then are put on long wait lists with many delays. See Motorola. -- Lawrence Lile Senior Project Engineer Toastmaster, Inc. Division of Salton, Inc. 573-446-5661 voice 573-446-5676 fax Michael Rigby-Jones Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 06/24/2004 08:28 AM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: [OT]: Why PIC? >-----Original Message----- >From: rrc124+@PITT.EDU [mailto:rrc124+@PITT.EDU] >Sent: 24 June 2004 14:02 >To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU >Subject: [OT]: Why PIC? > > >I have a really stupid question to ask, but it's been >bothering me for a while so I'll just ago ahead and ask it: > >Why is the PIC uC so popular? > >When I look at the specs of the competition, I see nothing but >seemingly better products. Now I don't want everyone to get >mad.. please. I'm simply a lowly computer science student who >is still very new to this little hobby.. and I've only ever >used PICs, so I really can't compare fairly. But the things I >see are: AVRs and SXs are much faster w/MIPS, offer things >such as lots of SRAM, etc. > >Are PICs cheaper? Is it because there are just so damn many to >chose from? Is it because they are simpler to understand, so >many engineers learned on them and still hold them dear? Is it >because they have such a huge base of code/developers already >and the momentum keeps them going? I guess the main thing I >see is that these other uC's have such an awesome MIPS >advantage... so why not use them? Are they more expensive? > >I don't know why I'm asking this because the answer is >probably a combination of all of the above. But I keep >wondering if there is one huge advantage that I'm not seeing. >Anyway, just a thought. The PIC's were there way before the competition, so they had a lot of installed units and a lot of people with experience of PIC by the time some viable competition came along. Also Microchip are very hobbiest friendly, they supply samples, and basic programmers can be built for pennies. Lots of tools available, for Linux, MAC, DOS and Windows. Easy to learn the instruction set. It blows the standard 8051 out of the water in terms of performance, which would have been on of it's competitor originaly. The SX is effectively a fast PIC clone, but although it's fast in terms of MIP's, it uses the older 14 bit instruction set. The AVR is good, but Atmel shot themselves in the foot a few years back by being unable to supply enough devices into the market, leading to huge lead times. People don't forget those things very quickly. Motorola have traditionaly never been interested in small quantity users, samples were virtualy impossible to get unless you were an automotive manufacturer or simmilar large quantity customer. Better these days, and very much alive and kicking for hobby robot controllers. The rest of the devices are relatively new such as the Texas MPS430 and the Cypress PSOC devices. There isn't nearly as much information and code samples availble on the net as the PIC. 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