It depends on what you consider "The market" and "hobbyist friendly".

I'm comfortable working with LQFPs down to 0.4mm pitch, and I have
taught others who have no soldering experience how to solder them.
There are a number of adaptors that allow one to use a tqfp where a
dip might be required (breadboard, etc).

The LPC1100 comes in an lqfp 48, and is under $3 [USD] in quantities
of one, and under $1.50 [USD] in quantities of 1k.

But if you're looking for DIP parts, you're going to have a hard time
finding 32 bit processors that fill your needs.  It may be better to
stick with platforms such as mbed which cost more, but are in a
hobbyist friendly package for development, then consider your options
if you decide to sell/distribute something.

It makes more sense for the manufacturer to focus on the packaging
that their larger customers want (those that buy in 5 and 6 digit
quantities) and let smaller companies fill the niche inbetween by
assembling them onto hobbyist friendly development boards and
adaptors.

If you're only building a few one-offs, the cost difference from $3 to
$30 isn't that great when it includes everything that the mbed.
netduino, etc platforms include.  If you really need 100 or more of
them, then you'll probably want to consider an assembler anyway.

Alternately, become comfortable with assembling 0.4mm pitch surface
mount parts, and you will have access to most of the sub 145 pin count
processors anyway.

-Adam

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 5:42 AM, William "Chops" Westfield
<westfw@mac.com> wrote:
> There is all this hype at the moment about 32bit CPUs replacing 8bit
> cpus, as the cost of the CPU and memory goes down to 8bit levels, and
> chip manufacturers target the market.
>
> 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. =A0In other words, a lot
> of the remaining 8bit applications exist no so much because there
> isn't a more powerful 32bit replacement, but because the 8bit cpus
> remain much cheaper and easier to "develop and manufacture, for some
> large classes of products, compared to the more modern wonder-chips.
>
> In other words, the LPC1102 ought to be doomed to failure.
>
> Am I completely off base here? =A0Has the sort of PCB technology needed,
> and the automated manufacturing, become so available that the initial
> "hand assembly" phases is completely gone? =A0(This is certainly true at
> my real job, where I (nominally) write software for boards with many
> layers and many chips that cost big $$$$$ and have very long design
> cycles... =A0We've got rework techs and even an Xray machine for looking
> at those BGA joints, but they're all for adjusting things AFTER the
> boards come back fully manufactured.) =A0Are the "small businesses"
> doing micro-based product design beyond the "we build the first few by
> hand, perhaps painfully" or not? =A0Are there limits on manufacturing
> technology used by/for that class of company, or is that a thing of
> the past?
>
> Thanks
> Bill W
>
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