The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
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The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#2It'd be okay if you created an index of the price of the top-selling N microcontrollers at any given time, rather than tracking them for their entire life cycle. The 8086 was a great and important processor, but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices.
The S&P 500 does this for stocks; perhaps their implementation and design choices can find some application here?
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#3It'd be okay if you created an index of the price of the top-selling N microcontrollers at any given time, rather than tracking them for their entire life cycle. The 8086 was a great and important processor, but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices. The S&P 500 does this for stocks; perhaps their implementation and design choices can find some application here?
Yes, that would definitely be ok! The microcontrollers included in this index are a function how we rank them in the Octopart search index, which reflects some element of "top-selling" but probably not adequately so (i.e. your point on the 8086 is a good one).
Regardless, we think stock indexes are indeed are good role model for this kind of exercise. If there's interest in this we might invest in: (a) continuing to track this with better documentation on how we do it, and (b) start tracking more categories of parts.
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#4Is it just me, or are almost all of the microcontroolers in that "top 1000" list from Microchip? If so, that doesn't seem like a very representative sample.
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#5It'd be okay if you created an index of the price of the top-selling N microcontrollers at any given time, rather than tracking them for their entire life cycle. The 8086 was a great and important processor, but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices. The S&P 500 does this for stocks; perhaps their implementation and design choices can find some application here?
If following the S&P500, you'd want to weight it by the equivalent of "market cap". From what I can tell from the caption on the price index [1], this seems to be an equal weight index (which in the case of the stock market, results in a larger beta than the actual index).
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#6Is it just me, or are almost all of the microcontroolers in that "top 1000" list from Microchip? If so, that doesn't seem like a very representative sample.
Really comes down to how Octopart determines relevance in the search. If "Relevance" is just another word for "arranged by sales volume", then it could be very representative.
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#7Is it just me, or are almost all of the microcontroolers in that "top 1000" list from Microchip? If so, that doesn't seem like a very representative sample.
There are other manufacturers in the top 1000 (e.g. Cypress, Adesto, Atmel) but currently the list does seem to be heavily weighted towards Microchip. This is a first stab at a component price index so it's a work in progress!
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#8It'd be okay if you created an index of the price of the top-selling N microcontrollers at any given time, rather than tracking them for their entire life cycle. The 8086 was a great and important processor, but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices. The S&P 500 does this for stocks; perhaps their implementation and design choices can find some application here?
"... but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices"
Kinda pedantic remark:
No longer relevant as a stand-alone device but don't overlook the IP core market. It's pretty common to find one or more of these old cores as a module in a more complex device (e.g. an FPGA) or as the base for an ASIC (esp. automotive). Same for the 8088, 8051, 6502, ...
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#9It'd be okay if you created an index of the price of the top-selling N microcontrollers at any given time, rather than tracking them for their entire life cycle. The 8086 was a great and important processor, but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices. The S&P 500 does this for stocks; perhaps their implementation and design choices can find some application here?
"... but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices" Kinda pedantic remark: No longer relevant as a stand-alone device but don't overlook the IP core market. It's pretty common to find one or more of these old cores as a module in a more complex device (e.g. an FPGA) or as the base for an ASIC (esp. automotive). Same for the 8088, 8051, 6502, ...
Do such uses of IP manifest itself in this price index though? (I presume not, since even bare silicon prices should be several cents cheaper than a final packaged discrete device for SIP uses)
Re: The Octopart Microcontroller Price Index
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
"... but it's no longer relevant to any discussion of processor prices" Kinda pedantic remark: No longer relevant as a stand-alone device but don't overlook the IP core market. It's pretty common to find one or more of these old cores as a module in a more complex device (e.g. an FPGA) or as the base for an ASIC (esp. automotive). Same for the 8088, 8051, 6502, ...
Do such uses of IP manifest itself in this price index though? (I presume not, since even bare silicon prices should be several cents cheaper than a final packaged discrete device for SIP uses)
One extreme is ARM cores: incredibly popular, there are several in your laptop and probably half a dozen in your smartphone, ... ARM holdings is an IP & design company, they design & license cores.
But regarding those old cores I mentioned ... lots of use because it's legacy with lots of developers that know the architecture.