At 07:38 AM 3/4/2010, you wrote:


>Xiaofan Chen wrote:
>
> > Existing PIC customers will be still be using PICs. But I do not
> > see many other customers who use ARMs to switch to PIC24/PIC32.
> > At least that is what I get from talking to some other guys,
> > including Microchip guys.
>
>Microchip owns its IP which is a big advantage over ARM based
>licensed IP. In volume applications Microchip would have a
>significant advantage.

'Could' have a significant advantage. The design work and documentation has
to be paid for somehow, and the ARM work is spread over a number of customers,
including foundries.

It's not clear to me that the ARM business model is any less or more
competitive in high volumes. Certainly their current volumes would appear to
be comparable to those from Microchip, with 5+ bn shipped, and 5 billion
units per year forecast for 2011. Most likely the ASP would be considerably
higher for the ARMs, at least for now.

http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/19720.php

>When the volumes are high enough price will dominate the
>choices made by customers.

I'm a bit intrigued by the initiative from some mfrs to supply ROM'd
code such as USB stacks and FAT file systems along with the device so
code stored in user flash only has to do API calls. If ROM takes up
significantly less silicon real estate (multi-level?) than an equivalent
amount of flash and/or is significantly faster this could be a winner.

>Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com



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