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Demand for 8-, 16-bit MCUs solid as industry moves to 32-bit
By Suzanne Deffree, News Editor -- Electronic News, 11/5/2007
As the industry continues its move to 32-bit MCUs (microcontrollers), demand from the electronics supply chain is still not only solid for 8-bit and 16-bit varieties, but growing, according to industry sources.
Microchip Technology Inc., which has some 60,000 8-bit customers and today launched seven general-purpose members of first family of 32-bit MCUs based on MIPS32 architecture, for one, will not be abandoning the 8-bit or 16-bit markets any time soon. “We continue to see strong growth in the 8-bit market,” Patrick Johnson, director of Microchip’s high performance microcontroller division, said. “In 16 bit, we just started to bring out those [MCU] products that went into production in 2004.”
While Microchip’s 32-bit PIC MCU line -- operating at up to 72 MHz and offering sufficient code- and data-space capabilities with up to 512 KByte of flash and 32 KByte of RAM and also including a set of integrated peripherals -- adds more functionality to devices than previous Microchip MCU lines and will hit the market at an estimated 15 percent price increase compared to the company’s 16-bit PIC line, Johnson said the previous-generation MCUs still garner customer attention.
“Overall, 8 and 16 bit will continue to do well and grow. We’ve seen customers be pleased and interested when they find out we have 32 bit, but, in a lot of cases, more interested in 16 bit.”
He also noted the low price advantages 8-bit MCUs offer and the new market opportunities that have arisen from that, including low-end medical electronics. But at some point, said Jack Browne, VP of marketing at MIPS Technologies Inc., the price difference between the three bit groups could be so insignificant that the saving won’t outweigh the additional functionality 32-bit MCUs bring to the table.
“The 4-bit market has started to decline just because the price difference between 4 bit and 8 bit is so small today it doesn’t matter. At some point in the future, the price difference on some 8-bit products won’t matter and 32 bit will grow even faster,” he said.
MIPS last week entered the 32-bit MCU market with its MIPS32 family, which will see MIPS combine processor IP and Chipidea Microelectronica S.A. analog IP and peripherals, marking the company’s first move that incorporates its acquisition of Chipidea. The solution to current market demand and near-term demand, said Browne, is even MCU supply chain coverage.
“Inside the 32-bit market we look at automotive as the highest performance market, we look at the industrial market as kind of the mid-performance, and the multi-purpose markets are the lowest price markets. They’ll ship two times the units of the automotive market, but they’ll only generate half the revenue. We want to play in that whole space,” he said.
According to Gartner Dataquest research, the 8-bit MCU market has a TAM (total available market) of $5 billion, the 16-bit MCU market has a TAM of $4 billion, and the 32-bit MCU market has a TAM of $3 billion.
For more on 32-bit MCUs, see:
Different strokes: The 34th annual microprocessor directory
Putting the squeeze on 16-bit processors
