On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 11:59 AM, Spehro Pefhany wrote: > I suspect that MIPS will not disappear any time soon, but it might be > squeezed into narrower or slower-growing niches, and might not develop > as rich an ecosystem. ARM Holdings is almost 10x the > size of MIPS, and is profitable. That is why I think Microchip made a mistake to commit on MIPS core for the MCU market. Imagination will not be that interested in the MCU space as the older MIPS. On the ARM side, you can see that Cortex M0/M3/M4 gain a lot of market in the MCU space. That does not mean Microchip will lose its position in the 8bit space any time soon. But it does mean Microchip has limit space to grow in the 32bit MCU market. It lacks competitor to Cortex M4 now. On the other hand, Microchip may still catch up by licensing ARM core in the end, either directly or indirectly (through acquisition). > We do indeed live in interesting times. Yes. :-) --=20 Xiaofan --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .