5 ms·

China is full of counterfeits though. I don't actually expect those chips in China to be legitimate. Its public information that these chips are made in Taiwan

China is full of counterfeits though. I don't actually expect those chips in China to be legitimate. Its public information that these chips are made in Taiwan or other locations, so Chinese supply is pretty equestionable. I can order 3000+ from Microchip's website right now for any of the AVR Dx series. And Microchip has decades-long reputation of a solid supply chain, even in the 2020 COVID19 period when STM32 got issues. -------- The older chips are fully obsolete compared to these modern designs. The newer AVR DD is cheaper, faster, loses the Voltage-slowdown issue (1.8V is only qualified for like 4MHz on ATMega328. 1.8V on AVR DD can go full 24MHz), etc. etc. I don't see any reason why anyone would ever choose the decades-old ATMega328 when AVR DD is right here, cheaper and better in every conceivable way. One exception: if you really need the ATMega328 pinout _exactly_ because you can't change the PCB or update the electronics, I can understand legacy issues. But new projects should pretty much switch to AVR Dx or AVR Ex (depending on your project's needs, since the different chips specialize in different purposes). Ditto for legacy software because ATMega328 peripherals are older. (Modern TimerA and TimerB are much better than ATMega328's legacy Timer0 and Timer1)

contingencies 2y ago
China-bashing is naive - most of the world's electronics are produced there for a reason. Here's how it works. Projects aren't open shut, and they don't exist in a vacuum. The cost of targeting a new hardware platform is nontrivial. All hardware costs are trivial vs. overall project costs (time, people, shipping, testing, production, packaging, distribution, etc.). Even then, outside of launch-time near-shore marketing-land, the chips currently cost double the old ones. No prior software will run without modification. Even the programming interface is new, which means retooling production code, jigs and fixtures in addition to firmware and schematics. Nowhere did I say "the hardware is worse", rather I said "the hardware is a premature choice for commercial projects with rapid delivery requirements at this time". Understand the difference. I stand by that assessment.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  > China-bashing is naive - most of the world's electronics are produced there for a reason. I didn't say that China didn't have most of the world's production. What I said is that a large number of Chinese chips are counterfeit. So when we're talking about discussion points like: > Even then, outside of launch-time near-shore marketing-land, the chips currently cost double the old ones. Well, have you done the QA to assure that these "old chip lots" are actually legitimate AVR ATMega328pb or are they some king of counterfeit chip? I know the STM32 chips in a lot of Chinese shops are just clever replicas, and that's key to their lower prices. I don't fully trust prices, especially of old stock in China. --------- China has enormous potential in terms of electronics manufacturing. But the supply chain problem / counterfeit problem certainly exists. No matter how clever their replicas get, there are minor concerns about power-delivery differences or minor differences to the ADC (or whatever). Maybe the counterfeit chips are good enough for your projects, or maybe not. But its still a concern that floats in the back of my mind, especially if the prices are much cheaper than the legitimate sources. Like: maybe the chips don't sleep quite as low power as a legitimate chip, or the ADC is slightly less linear than a legitimate chip. Etc. etc. Minor differences that with good testing you could actually work with the counterfeit and get a usable product, but a risk nonetheless if you have an old design that depends on the specifications of the original. ---------- Here's a Hackaday on some STM32 counterfeits they found: https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-ba...
  - kragen 2y ago
    > China has enormous potential in terms of electronics manufacturing. this is like saying 'south africa has enormous potential in terms of diamond mining' or 'the us has enormous potential in terms of mass shootings'. china had enormous potential in terms of electronic manufacturing 30 years ago. today, electronics manufacturing outside of china is a footnote. an increasing number of manufacturers don't bother to produce non-chinese-language datasheets. in this context, if a chip's availability in china is sketchy, that's reason to question its viability the hackaday article does start with talking about stm32 counterfeits but is mostly about legitimate clones, most of which are improvements over st's chips

contingencies 2y ago

China-bashing is naive - most of the world's electronics are produced there for a reason. Here's how it works. Projects aren't open shut, and they don't exist in a vacuum. The cost of targeting a new hardware platform is nontrivial. All hardware costs are trivial vs. overall project costs (time, people, shipping, testing, production, packaging, distribution, etc.). Even then, outside of launch-time near-shore marketing-land, the chips currently cost double the old ones. No prior software will run without modification. Even the programming interface is new, which means retooling production code, jigs and fixtures in addition to firmware and schematics. Nowhere did I say "the hardware is worse", rather I said "the hardware is a premature choice for commercial projects with rapid delivery requirements at this time". Understand the difference. I stand by that assessment.

dragontamer 2y ago
> China-bashing is naive - most of the world's electronics are produced there for a reason. I didn't say that China didn't have most of the world's production. What I said is that a large number of Chinese chips are counterfeit. So when we're talking about discussion points like: > Even then, outside of launch-time near-shore marketing-land, the chips currently cost double the old ones. Well, have you done the QA to assure that these "old chip lots" are actually legitimate AVR ATMega328pb or are they some king of counterfeit chip? I know the STM32 chips in a lot of Chinese shops are just clever replicas, and that's key to their lower prices. I don't fully trust prices, especially of old stock in China. --------- China has enormous potential in terms of electronics manufacturing. But the supply chain problem / counterfeit problem certainly exists. No matter how clever their replicas get, there are minor concerns about power-delivery differences or minor differences to the ADC (or whatever). Maybe the counterfeit chips are good enough for your projects, or maybe not. But its still a concern that floats in the back of my mind, especially if the prices are much cheaper than the legitimate sources. Like: maybe the chips don't sleep quite as low power as a legitimate chip, or the ADC is slightly less linear than a legitimate chip. Etc. etc. Minor differences that with good testing you could actually work with the counterfeit and get a usable product, but a risk nonetheless if you have an old design that depends on the specifications of the original. ---------- Here's a Hackaday on some STM32 counterfeits they found: https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-ba...
- kragen 2y ago
  > China has enormous potential in terms of electronics manufacturing. this is like saying 'south africa has enormous potential in terms of diamond mining' or 'the us has enormous potential in terms of mass shootings'. china had enormous potential in terms of electronic manufacturing 30 years ago. today, electronics manufacturing outside of china is a footnote. an increasing number of manufacturers don't bother to produce non-chinese-language datasheets. in this context, if a chip's availability in china is sketchy, that's reason to question its viability the hackaday article does start with talking about stm32 counterfeits but is mostly about legitimate clones, most of which are improvements over st's chips