I was recently reminded of a very old joke―old enough that I remember hearing it from my dad when I was a kid:
There were two grocers, Smith and Jones, on the same street. Smith had a sign in his window, "Avocados, 20 pence a pound". A woman goes in and asks for some. "Sorry love", said Smith, "I haven't got any in just now; come back on Wednesday".
So she goes on up the street to Jones. But his avocados are 2 pounds-fifty a pound! But at least he has them in stock.
"That's a bit steep isn't it? Smith's are only 20 pence a pound".
"Yeah", says Jones, "and when I haven't got any in stock, mine also are only 20 pence a pound!"
[Source: http://www.jokebuddha.com.]
I was reminded of this joke by my recent attempts to purchase low-cost development boards from chip manufacturers and their distributors. It seems these days that everyone offers low-cost boards, but no one can actually deliver them.
Low-cost development boards have become something of a fad lately. Although Texas Instruments didn’t invent the concept, TI deserves credit for launching the Beagle Board in 2008. The Beagle Board is a $150, general-purpose embedded computing development platform that has become a big hit with open source developers. 29,000 Beagle Boards have been shipped since 2008, and another 15,000 are expected to ship this year. That’s an astounding run rate for a development board.
Low-cost development boards are attractive for several reasons, not the least of which is that much of the most valuable and creative embedded software development work taking place these days is happening in the open source community, often by unpaid volunteers or garage entrepreneurs for whom the difference between a $150 development board and a $1,500 board can be the difference between attractive and unaffordable. I’ll be writing more about the merits of low-cost boards and open source development in a later column. Today I want to focus on a very simple fact. A fact so simple that one would think it wouldn’t need to be stated. Hello, chip vendors, are you paying attention? Here it is:
Your low-cost development board does nobody any good if you can’t actually deliver it.
In line with the joke about the two grocers, there are few things as frustrating as finding a low-cost development board that looks like a great fit for your project, ordering it, and then finding weeks later that it isn’t actually available.
As I wrote a couple of years ago, processor vendors have a poor track record on delivering development boards of any kind. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that with new, lower-cost boards generating much higher demand, the situation hasn’t improved. If anything, it seems to be getting worse.
As a consumer, I frequently buy books, electronics, and even specialty food items on-line. Nine times out of ten, the stuff shows up on my doorstep within a week, with no additional effort on my part. Remarkably, the semiconductor industry―an industry on the cutting edge of technological innovation in many respects―doesn’t even come close to matching the execution of on-line merchants like Amazon.com and Soap.com.
Late last year I tried to order a low-cost development board from a major distributor. My order was accepted and then, several weeks later, cancelled by the distributor without explanation. I re-entered my order and again, a few weeks later the new order was cancelled, again without explanation. I’ve had similar experiences with low-cost boards ordered directly from the manufacturer.
In some cases, engineers have already made a decision to use a specific processor when they order a development board. In these cases, the vendor’s inability to deliver delays the project and may jeopardize getting the end product to market in time. In other cases, engineers order development boards as part of their evaluation of a candidate processor for a new design. In these cases, inability to get the board is a double-whammy: Not only is the engineer unable to proceed with the evaluation, but she also will start to wonder whether the chip vendor is going to be a reliable supplier. In either case, it’s a problem.
I suspect that a big part of the problem here is that chip vendors are just that―chip vendors―and are not specialists in designing, manufacturing, delivering, and supporting development boards. Nevertheless, consistently delivering these boards in a timely manner is becoming more and more critical. Chip vendors should either become expert in doing so, or partner with organizations that already know how to do it well.
What do you think? Send me your feedback at bdtinews@BDTI.com. I’d love to hear from you!
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