[contingencies]

The wisdom of the crowd can be substantial in supply chain. That is to say, for non-trivial projects, selecting any kind of component which may not be immediately available in arbitrary quantities represents a huge project risk. The numbers currently available in China show that the chips' position in the market is too early days / small volume to be considered a viable development target given the fact that the world center of electronics production is yet to see enough aggregate demand to stock more than a handful.

Now if you want to develop against a chip on a 10 year outlook, go for it. But if you want to get work done this week, or this month, or even this year, I'd argue that the distribution is too premature to make that a smart decision.

[violet13]

I don't follow. You can source the chips, in large quantities, right now, and have them delivered to any non-embargoed country in a matter of days.

That they're in limited stock at a particular outlet in China means very little, no? And conversely, that STM32 chips happened to be in stock in 2018 meant very little in the following four years.

If you want the chips right now, you can have them. If you want long-term availability, either buy ahead of the time or sign a contract with the manufacturer (and hope it doesn't fall apart due to a geopolitical crisis or whatnot).

[contingencies]

I think perhaps you miss the difference between ordering from the vendor and having stock in the marketplace. The first is just a promise, which everyone learned had little value during chipaggedon. It turns out vendors have all sorts of interests which affect which customers they prioritize stock for in the event that a shortage is anticipated, and most of us aren't on the list. Stock in the distribution marketplace means that not only does the quantity really exist, but it has been in demand long enough that the distribution chain has decided to buffer additional volume. This means there's volume moving and you can to a much greater extent than a vendor promise actually count on it being available and the price representative (rather than promotional, temporary, or highly subject to fluctuation). In general, you also get your stock quicker. I hope that clarifies.

[dragontamer]

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]

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]

> 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-ba...

[kragen]

> 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

[dragontamer]

I dunno why you're so focused on trying to make China look better. It's well acknowledged by pretty much everyone that supply chains in China have a counterfeit problem.

There are pretty much two solutions. Either you more closely handle supply chain issues yourself by buying from the OEM or reputable sources (which increases costs). Or you accept the counterfeits as good enough. Based on this discussion, you've gone with the second option which is fine. But it's something people should know about your argument.

You CANNOT compare prices in the way you've been doing in your argument. That's all I'm saying.

When we compare OEM ATMega328pb vs AVR64DD32, the OEM prices for AVR DD is cheaper. That's the ground truth.

The methodology you've chosen as the basis of your argument is not accounting for the huge, well known risks of counterfeit ATMega328.

[kragen]

you have me confused with someone else; i haven't compared any prices in this thread

i agree that there's a counterfeit problem, and it's worse in china, but that's irrelevant to my argument

i don't think it makes sense to say that i'm trying to make china look better. you're painting a pants-on-head absurd picture of china's role in electronics manufacturing, apparently taken from some kind of incredible propaganda. i'm just giving you the basic facts that everyone agrees on but you don't know yet