The "production" competitor to the Raspberry Pi Zero is honestly something like... the Octavo Systems OSD3358. At $50, you may wonder why this device is superior... but it has integrated RAM, Open Documentation, the features that are necessary for microcontroller work (ADC, DAC, PRU/Programmable Realtime Units, RTC, on-board LDO Regulator, on-board Lithium-Ion cell balancer and Lithium-Ion manager, support for TWO Crystal Oscillators, 114 GPIO, 6 UARTs).
Its all about your REQUIREMENTs. The Raspberry Pi Zero barely does anything aside from computer things (Ex: WiFi, USB).
Don't get me wrong, the Raspberry Pi Zero is a wonderful computer. But microcontrollers are things that can work with Thermocouples, control Active Filters, and control motors. In contrast, the Raspberry Pi burns itself out if you put an LED on its weak GPIO pins... and even "Realtime" Linux can't save you from the micro-second delay associated with the GPIO pin hardware.
My point is that if I needed to build and sell 200,000 of something over 10 years, I can't order that many from the Raspberry Pi foundation and trust the piece will still be around the entire time. And if I wanted 200,000 of the Broadcom parts, they wouldn't sell it to me in that small of a quantity.
The OSD3358 is definitely the right approach, since putting high-speed impedance/timing matched DDR lines on a board to make it work right with a modern 1GHz+ CPU is a much higher level of difficulty. Plus you will also need to make your PCB 8 or 10 layers to shield the interference which increases the cost.
I thought package-on-package (like the AM335x's predecessor, the OMAP) was the way to go, but I'm starting to like the monolithic package better.
You can easily spend around $10 on a single filter (ex: 8-pole Filter... such as https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/linear-technology/...). If you need an 8-pole elliptical filter, you just go out and buy one, amirite?
The "production" competitor to the Raspberry Pi Zero is honestly something like... the Octavo Systems OSD3358. At $50, you may wonder why this device is superior... but it has integrated RAM, Open Documentation, the features that are necessary for microcontroller work (ADC, DAC, PRU/Programmable Realtime Units, RTC, on-board LDO Regulator, on-board Lithium-Ion cell balancer and Lithium-Ion manager, support for TWO Crystal Oscillators, 114 GPIO, 6 UARTs).
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/octavo-systems-llc/...
Its all about your REQUIREMENTs. The Raspberry Pi Zero barely does anything aside from computer things (Ex: WiFi, USB).
Don't get me wrong, the Raspberry Pi Zero is a wonderful computer. But microcontrollers are things that can work with Thermocouples, control Active Filters, and control motors. In contrast, the Raspberry Pi burns itself out if you put an LED on its weak GPIO pins... and even "Realtime" Linux can't save you from the micro-second delay associated with the GPIO pin hardware.