Re: Cost of a microcontroller - is it very important?

henza wrote:
A newbie here.
After reading a small portion of the discussion, this question comes up in
my head, is the cost of microcontroller a very important issue in terms of
picking the right one? How much a microcontroller CAN contribute to a
whole product?

Or is it the functionality, speed, power consumption and development
toolchain userfriendly-ness more important in the decision?

I am thinking about using Cortex M3 for my server cabinet temp controller
project, is it a bad choice in any context?

Many thanks in advance

Henry


Like Guy said: Do the math.

If you're building 100 of something, _ever_, and you can save $10000 worth of engineering time by spending $20 more per processor, you've just saved $10000 - $2000 = $18000, and you're a hero.

If you're building 100K parts/year, then spending $10000 worth of engineering time to save one thin dime per finished part is a break-even. If you can save a quarter per finished part -- you're a hero.

Now go back to that first case, and ask yourself if spending $10000 of engineering time to save $250 over the life of the product is a good thing or a bad thing...

You should _always_ consider how many parts are going to be made, and how much of a hurry you are in to get working devices on the market. You'll _always_ be faced with having to spend money to save money -- it's just a question of whether the smart money gets spent on a (relatively) huge processor larded with resources to ease the development burden, or whether the smart money gets spent on development to use the thinnest processor possible.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
.