>> But they could have if they done things properly rather than
>> simply binning chips as an afterthought when they noticed a
>> good number of them would work at low voltage, e.g. perhaps
>> as a single time programmable fuse to set the voltage level.
>> The BOR is an important peripheral in a minimal component
>> count/cost application, IME at least.
>
>for some value of 'properly'. I prefer it the way it is rather
>your alternative, which would very likely result in a higher price.

<VBG> well my value of 'properly' would have been a config register switch 
to allow a 5V working (probably 4.5V brownout) and a 3.3V working (3V? 
brownout value). Having a 3V capable chip with unusable brownout is a 
marketing nightmare. maybe with a B version of the chip ...

Using 2 bits with both 0 for brownout off, then they could have another 
value in-between if neither of those suited some applications. The way it is 
has not been well thought out, and this is possibly borne out in some later 
chips which do seem to have a settable threshold. 

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