3 ms·

I have no idea if it's a lot or not, but for reference, Comma's initial (trial) order was for 10k chips.

• pclmulqdq 3y ago
  That's very small for an automotive product, particularly when you don't have a much bigger follow-up order on your timeline. Around million units is the normal volume, and it's where companies like Qualcomm will start to talk to you. Many companies are a lot more friendly to small customers, though.
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >That's very small for an automotive product Also automotive customers tend to stick with their long term partners. It's why Renesas, Infineon and NXP(former Freescale) own the automotive MCU market. Once you heavily invest in the ecosystem and buy all the tooling, compilers, debuggers, JTAG trace probes, and your workforce is already accustomed to all the pitfalls and workarounds of an architecture, it's too expensive too switch to a different provider.
• szundi 3y ago
  That’s nothing in automotive
• crote 3y ago
  That's pretty much an overgrown hobbyist project to them. Chips are usually sold in reels of 1k or 3k. For quantities like 10k chip vendors will just redirect you to a distributor like Mouser or Digikey - who will be able to ship an order of 150k to you next-business-day without any issues. The problems start when the chips you want aren't redistributed. You're a rounding error to the manufacturer. Why spend the time and effort assisting a startup with a one-off 10k order when the next email is from a large car manufacturer placing a guaranteed 15M order?