'flash microchip' shortage...?

[Paul Maddox]

Trevor,

> Out of curiosity, anyone got any thoughts as to what device this could
> actually be? One of the AVR flash programmeable mpu's possibly?

yes, its one of them, though I dont know which.
To cope with the several million part quantity that sony and a couple of
mobile phone
companies wanted (G3 phones) they stopped maeking their normal lines and
started
producing these things..

> I know they
> can be difficult to get hold of, judging by comments from other folk on
the
> list. But I'd personally have thought mass marked products like electronic
> kiddies toys would tend to use custom microprocessors, I dunno.
>

why? when you can buy 10million AVRs for liek 0.001$ each and use them?
no fqab costs, no custom design, no development, just write the software.

> Apparently the mystery IC manufacturer is limiting quantities to 'keep the
> prices up'.
>

Nope, they're not doing this..
they just couldnt cope with the demand..
They've since bought 1( maybe two) more fab plants
and stocks are slowly returning to normal.. supposdly by Q3 next year life
will be aback to normal..


Paul (with a stock of 3 AVRs, all mine, all mine I tell you!) MADdox

_______________________________________
Wavesynth home page;-
    Http://www.wavesynth.com
Modulus synthesizers home page;-
    Http://www.wavesynth.com/modulus