On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 8:46 AM, wrote: >> NXP in particular has the LPC1102, an ARM Cortex M0 with 16 pins, 32K >> of flash, 8K of RAM, and the usual set of 8bit-like features, and a >> more-or less 8bit price. >> >> HOWEVER, this thing comes in a WLCSP Package (Wafer Level Chip Scale >> Package), which is essentially a 4x4 Ball Grid Array with 0.5mm >> spacing. =A0Not hobbyist friendly at all :-( >> >> Now, while I myself am primarily a hobbyist when it comes to building >> hardware, it has always been my perception that there are a large >> number of "real companies" out there making "real products" that are >> never-the-less not in an economic position to commit the sort of >> resources needed to create a design based on such a part (4-layer >> extra fine-pitch PCB and probably outsourced assembly), especially >> during initial development. =A0And for that matter aren't really >> creating boards in high enough volumes to justify that sort of >> manufacturing for their final product, either > > Having spent the last 2 days at a manufacturing show here in the UK, I wa= s surprised by the number of PCB manufacturers, assembly houses and so on t= outing for business. Many of the assembly houses would take your schematic = and deliver a box containing the result, if that was how you wanted to work= .. A one off wasn't out of the question either. One I spoke to wasn't intere= sted in doing larger than about 2500 units at a time, but would do one off = quite happily. > > I suspect the situation isn't that different stateside if one went out lo= oking. > > So for anyone really wishing to do a one off development board to get a p= roduct to reproducible stage probably wouldn't need to look too far, even i= f they only went as far as designing the board layout. I would be really su= rprised if these companies cannot produce a one off in a manner that would = not be too dissimilar economically to doing it in house. But like everything, there is a cost/benefit analysis to be made. The tiniest package is do-able with the help of an outside assembler, but for many industries there is no advantage to doing so, and some clear disadvantages. Debugging and rework is harder, for example, and the range of assemblers is limited to those running the latest equipment. It's like using 4/4 design rules on a PCB layout. When you need to, you need to, but otherwise I try to design so the cheapest assembly shop in China can build the product and it will work. Regards, Mark --=20 Mark Rages, Engineer Midwest Telecine LLC markrages@midwesttelecine.com --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .