On Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:47:43 -0000, you wrote:

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On
>Behalf
>> Of Xiaofan Chen
>> Sent: 02 March 2010 01:37
>> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
>> Subject: [EE] Low cost 32bit MCU, how low is low
>> 
>> http://www.microchip.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=481688
>> 
>> NXP is now selling 32bit MCU at really low cost,
>> especially the Cortex M0. The lower end Cortex M3 compete
>> well with high end 8-bit MCUs. Now the Cortex M0 parts
>> seem to beat PIC18 handsomely with price and features.
>> 
>> Even the price at qty of 1 is really low compared to PIC18F.
>> http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Microcontrollers-
>> Microprocessors/Microcontrollers-MCU/_/N-
>> 6hpeg?Keyword=lpc11&FS=True&Ns=Pricing|0
>> http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Microcontrollers-
>> Microprocessors/Microcontrollers-MCU/_/N-
>> 6hpeg?Keyword=pic18F&FS=True&Ns=Pricing|0
>
>In terms of performance/$ PICs haven't made much sense for quite a long
>time IMO.  What they do offer that very few other vendors do is parts in
>hobby friendly packages and very low pin count parts.

I'd generally agree with this & haven't looked at PICs for anything but 8-pin jobs for a while,
although I did recently find a 'bargain' for a particular combination of peripherals in the
PIC24FJ64GB004 with USB host for GBP2.50. AFAIK there aren't any lowish pincount ARMs at a similarly
low-cost with USB host and well-documented free USB source-code.

Personally I'd like an ARM with a low pin count, tons of RAM (64K+) but small flash (32 K is fine)
to keep costs down, or flashless with a bootloader to boot to RAM from SPI flash.
Seems that big RAM always comes with big, expensive flash as well....

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist