Charles Craft wrote:
> Hear, hear! Blind loyalty will screw you every time.
> Price and availability usually trump other features.

Actually, they usually don't.

The microcontroller industry is very competitive.  You get about the same
thing for about the same price from most of the major vendors.  Occasionall=
y
one vendor does a particularly good job in one area, but these are usually
not overwhelming advantages and are relatively short lived.  The most
recently offered micro will probably look a little better than competing
products just because it benefitted from a little bit more advanced
technology.

Every once in a while a vendor will take a larger step forward and have a
particular advantage for a while.  For example, the MSP430 had exceptional
low power performance when it first came out.  Microchip has since caught u=
p
with that, but the mystique seems to remain.  Microchip's 24 bit core was
another larger jump forward.

However, the real issue is investment in the toolchain.  It takes
significant learning and experience to get really good at a particular
flavor of microcontroller.  Therefore you pick a micro for the next project
that you are familiar with unless the expected volumes are quite high and a
competitor has something compelling.  This is rare.

At Embed we have done around 100 PIC projects and have invested in the
Microchip toolchain accordingly.  While we have no policy to use PIC
microcontrollers, it usually makes sense for our customers because the
competitive offerings, while perfectly fine most of the time, are about the
same.  However, we can hit the ground running with PICs, have learned where
the bodies are buried, what to watch out for, and have a relationship with
the Microchip people to get support equal to none when we really need it.
They know us enough so that when we report a problem or ask something, they
already know we've read the manual or done the measurement carefully.  We
can jump right to the meat of the problem with the right people and skip th=
e
usual dance while they do their idiot filtering.  These things all take tim=
e
and experience to build up, which you wouldn't have the first few projects
you do with a new line of microcontroller.

Microchip also has a few other things going for it.  I'd say it has the
broadest product line of microcontrollers in the industry, and they have
been very good about not obsoleting products.  The broad product line means
the toolchain investment can be applied to a wider range or products.  The
non-obsolescence means you can feel comfortable designing in their devices
in products you expect to have a long production life.  You can still today
buy a 16C54.  Sure it costs more and does less than just about everything
else, but for a lot of products saving a couple $$ of production cost isn't
worth a redesign, especially when that may require various certifications
and re-qualification by customers.

So, it's not about blind loyalty, but rather common sense and the best
tradeoff for the customer.


********************************************************************
Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products
(978) 742-9014.  Gold level PIC consultants since 2000.
--=20
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
.