On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 12:00 PM, M. Adam Davis wrote: > I think there are a few big advantages to Microchip that have held > true over the long term: > > =A0* Easy, inexpensive to get into (you _can_ buy $$$ tools, but you > don't have to) That is true. But it is not unique to Microchip. Same is true for ARM MCUs, or AVR MCUs, or MSP430 MCUs. > =A0* Well supplied (can almost always get parts on a reasonable time tabl= e) That is a very important advantages of Microchip. > =A0* Keep older parts around longer (some customers and contracts > require 5-10 year supply availability - notably some gov't work) That is again a very important advantages of Microchip. But it seems to me TI, ST and Freescale are all not bad in terms of this aspect. Defense, medical, automotive, automation and some other fields all need long part life. > =A0* Low cost (not lowest cost, but certainly reasonable) I thought only Atmel/NXP are low cost compared to Microchip, but now it seems all other ARM MCU players (ST/TI/etc) are lowering the cost. So suddenly I found Microchip's PIC24/PIC32 price on the high side as of now. > =A0* They turtle - they are conservative, and don't take big risks. That is true. But now Microchip is much a bigger companies now. So they are catching up quite well with various fields, like Ethernet, USB, touch screen and Wireless. The free stacks from Microchip are actually an advantage for Microchip now. Other companies have similar stacks, but often from 3rd party, often the free versions come with limitations. Microchip's stack may not be the best, but then it is completely free if you use Microchip's MCU. > Yes, there are a lot of areas where they are at a disadvantage, but > the above are pretty major strengths. > > Don't know how that will play out in the long term, though. =A0I always > figured they took MIPs because they probably got a better deal than if > they used ARM. I still think it is a mistake that they chose to use MIPS. Apparently MIPS's MCU core is not that well developed, not like ARM, which now has the Cortex M0/M3 core. If not a mistake, why they tried to buy Atmel last time? If they chose to use ARM core, then Microchip might already be a strong player in the 32bit MCU market given the above advantage and generally good support (seems to go downwards after being a bigger company judging from the forum complaints). -- = Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist