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I find it a bit hard to believe that a whole microcontroller can be cheaper than a few electronic components on their own. Probably what did happen before the s

I find it a bit hard to believe that a whole microcontroller can be cheaper than a few electronic components on their own. Probably what did happen before the shortage was that the MCU was cheap enough and gave you a great flexibility in prototyping and coudl be suited for many different tasks. After the prototyping stage, it should've been replaced by simpler things, but since good enough was cheap enough, it was left as it was.

shard 5y ago
When it comes down to very simple microcontrollers with only a few pins, the package costs starts to dominate. Consider that each pin on an IC costs a few cents. If a small pincount MCU is replaced with a 555, some discrete logic, and passives for each of those ICs, it certainly can be more expensive to have discrete logic as opposed to an MCU, not to mention the higher cost from increase in PCB size for the extra components.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  Assembly cost too from what I understand, if you need to go up to a more fancy pick'n'place machine because of the number of distinct component reels.
ptsneves 5y ago
Also remember that a bigger bill of materials in itself potentially complicates supply chain. The other thing that comes to mind is that more components may mean more passives or a more complex circuit.
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pySSK 5y ago
You’d be surprised. Some ARM M0 chips are in the $0.20 range for 1 (can’t see volume prices right now because of availability).
- dr_zoidberg 5y ago
  Yeah, I guess economy of scale means that you can manufacture 1,000,000,000 identical MCUs which are flexible and multi-purpose. Up to the point where you can't and it turns out some (most?) of them can be replaced by simple circuits with a few components.
baybal2 5y ago
There are MCUs costing less than a cent. It was likelly cheaper, but now they paid likelly hundredfold of what could've ever been saved.

shard 5y ago

When it comes down to very simple microcontrollers with only a few pins, the package costs starts to dominate. Consider that each pin on an IC costs a few cents. If a small pincount MCU is replaced with a 555, some discrete logic, and passives for each of those ICs, it certainly can be more expensive to have discrete logic as opposed to an MCU, not to mention the higher cost from increase in PCB size for the extra components.

magicalhippo 5y ago
Assembly cost too from what I understand, if you need to go up to a more fancy pick'n'place machine because of the number of distinct component reels.

ptsneves 5y ago

Also remember that a bigger bill of materials in itself potentially complicates supply chain. The other thing that comes to mind is that more components may mean more passives or a more complex circuit.

deleted 5y ago
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pySSK 5y ago

You’d be surprised. Some ARM M0 chips are in the $0.20 range for 1 (can’t see volume prices right now because of availability).

dr_zoidberg 5y ago
Yeah, I guess economy of scale means that you can manufacture 1,000,000,000 identical MCUs which are flexible and multi-purpose. Up to the point where you can't and it turns out some (most?) of them can be replaced by simple circuits with a few components.

baybal2 5y ago

There are MCUs costing less than a cent. It was likelly cheaper, but now they paid likelly hundredfold of what could've ever been saved.