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Ulf, what of these new AVRs? :)

"larwe" writes:

The CRC table was the first application for it for me - it takes up too much ram otherwise (see below). This was not too bad, but it can get really awkward for complicated structures like a menu definition.

/* calculates the 32 bit CRC of the data block at p, length len */ unsigned long bitCRC32(void*P, int len) { unsigned long crc = 0xffffffff; unsigned char *p = P;

while(len--) { /* fast crc uses program memory table lookup */ #ifdef avr crc = pgm_read_dword((unsigned long *)&crctable[(crc^*p++)&0xFF] ) ^ (crc>>8); #else crc = crctable[(crc^*p++)&0xFF] ^ (crc>>8); #endif } crc ^= 0xFFFFFFFF; return crc; }

...

// 32 bit crc lookup table. #ifndef avr #define PROGMEM #endif

PROGMEM unsigned long crctable[256] = { 0x00000000L, 0x77073096L, 0xEE0E612CL, 0x990951BAL, 0x076DC419L, 0x706AF48FL, 0xE963A535L, 0x9E6495A3L, 0x0EDB8832L, 0x79DCB8A4L, 0xE0D5E91EL, 0x97D2D988L, 0x09B64C2BL, 0x7EB17CBDL, 0xE7B82D07L, 0x90BF1D91L, 0x1DB71064L, 0x6AB020F2L, 0xF3B97148L, 0x84BE41DEL, 0x1ADAD47DL, 0x6DDDE4EBL, 0xF4D4B551L, 0x83D385C7L, 0x136C9856L, 0x646BA8C0L, 0xFD62F97AL, 0x8A65C9ECL, 0x14015C4FL, 0x63066CD9L, 0xFA0F3D63L, 0x8D080DF5L, 0x3B6E20C8L, 0x4C69105EL, 0xD56041E4L, 0xA2677172L, 0x3C03E4D1L, 0x4B04D447L, 0xD20D85FDL, 0xA50AB56BL, 0x35B5A8FAL, 0x42B2986CL, 0xDBBBC9D6L, 0xACBCF940L, 0x32D86CE3L, 0x45DF5C75L, 0xDCD60DCFL, 0xABD13D59L, 0x26D930ACL, 0x51DE003AL, 0xC8D75180L, 0xBFD06116L, 0x21B4F4B5L, 0x56B3C423L, 0xCFBA9599L, 0xB8BDA50FL, 0x2802B89EL, 0x5F058808L, 0xC60CD9B2L, 0xB10BE924L, 0x2F6F7C87L, 0x58684C11L, 0xC1611DABL, 0xB6662D3DL, 0x76DC4190L, 0x01DB7106L, 0x98D220BCL, 0xEFD5102AL, 0x71B18589L, 0x06B6B51FL, 0x9FBFE4A5L, 0xE8B8D433L, 0x7807C9A2L, 0x0F00F934L, 0x9609A88EL, 0xE10E9818L, 0x7F6A0DBBL, 0x086D3D2DL, 0x91646C97L, 0xE6635C01L, 0x6B6B51F4L, 0x1C6C6162L, 0x856530D8L, 0xF262004EL, 0x6C0695EDL, 0x1B01A57BL, 0x8208F4C1L, 0xF50FC457L, 0x65B0D9C6L, 0x12B7E950L, 0x8BBEB8EAL, 0xFCB9887CL, 0x62DD1DDFL, 0x15DA2D49L, 0x8CD37CF3L, 0xFBD44C65L, 0x4DB26158L, 0x3AB551CEL, 0xA3BC0074L, 0xD4BB30E2L, 0x4ADFA541L, 0x3DD895D7L, 0xA4D1C46DL, 0xD3D6F4FBL, 0x4369E96AL, 0x346ED9FCL, 0xAD678846L, 0xDA60B8D0L, 0x44042D73L, 0x33031DE5L, 0xAA0A4C5FL, 0xDD0D7CC9L, 0x5005713CL, 0x270241AAL, 0xBE0B1010L, 0xC90C2086L, 0x5768B525L, 0x206F85B3L, 0xB966D409L, 0xCE61E49FL, 0x5EDEF90EL, 0x29D9C998L, 0xB0D09822L, 0xC7D7A8B4L, 0x59B33D17L, 0x2EB40D81L, 0xB7BD5C3BL, 0xC0BA6CADL, 0xEDB88320L, 0x9ABFB3B6L, 0x03B6E20CL, 0x74B1D29AL, 0xEAD54739L, 0x9DD277AFL, 0x04DB2615L, 0x73DC1683L, 0xE3630B12L, 0x94643B84L, 0x0D6D6A3EL, 0x7A6A5AA8L, 0xE40ECF0BL, 0x9309FF9DL, 0x0A00AE27L, 0x7D079EB1L, 0xF00F9344L, 0x8708A3D2L, 0x1E01F268L, 0x6906C2FEL, 0xF762575DL, 0x806567CBL, 0x196C3671L, 0x6E6B06E7L, 0xFED41B76L, 0x89D32BE0L, 0x10DA7A5AL, 0x67DD4ACCL, 0xF9B9DF6FL, 0x8EBEEFF9L, 0x17B7BE43L, 0x60B08ED5L, 0xD6D6A3E8L, 0xA1D1937EL, 0x38D8C2C4L, 0x4FDFF252L, 0xD1BB67F1L, 0xA6BC5767L, 0x3FB506DDL, 0x48B2364BL, 0xD80D2BDAL, 0xAF0A1B4CL, 0x36034AF6L, 0x41047A60L, 0xDF60EFC3L, 0xA867DF55L, 0x316E8EEFL, 0x4669BE79L, 0xCB61B38CL, 0xBC66831AL, 0x256FD2A0L, 0x5268E236L, 0xCC0C7795L, 0xBB0B4703L, 0x220216B9L, 0x5505262FL, 0xC5BA3BBEL, 0xB2BD0B28L, 0x2BB45A92L, 0x5CB36A04L, 0xC2D7FFA7L, 0xB5D0CF31L, 0x2CD99E8BL, 0x5BDEAE1DL, 0x9B64C2B0L, 0xEC63F226L, 0x756AA39CL, 0x026D930AL, 0x9C0906A9L, 0xEB0E363FL, 0x72076785L, 0x05005713L, 0x95BF4A82L, 0xE2B87A14L, 0x7BB12BAEL, 0x0CB61B38L, 0x92D28E9BL, 0xE5D5BE0DL, 0x7CDCEFB7L, 0x0BDBDF21L, 0x86D3D2D4L, 0xF1D4E242L, 0x68DDB3F8L, 0x1FDA836EL, 0x81BE16CDL, 0xF6B9265BL, 0x6FB077E1L, 0x18B74777L, 0x88085AE6L, 0xFF0F6A70L, 0x66063BCAL, 0x11010B5CL, 0x8F659EFFL, 0xF862AE69L, 0x616BFFD3L, 0x166CCF45L, 0xA00AE278L, 0xD70DD2EEL, 0x4E048354L, 0x3903B3C2L, 0xA7672661L, 0xD06016F7L, 0x4969474DL, 0x3E6E77DBL, 0xAED16A4AL, 0xD9D65ADCL, 0x40DF0B66L, 0x37D83BF0L, 0xA9BCAE53L, 0xDEBB9EC5L, 0x47B2CF7FL, 0x30B5FFE9L, 0xBDBDF21CL, 0xCABAC28AL, 0x53B39330L, 0x24B4A3A6L, 0xBAD03605L, 0xCDD70693L, 0x54DE5729L, 0x23D967BFL, 0xB3667A2EL, 0xC4614AB8L, 0x5D681B02L, 0x2A6F2B94L, 0xB40BBE37L, 0xC30C8EA1L, 0x5A05DF1BL, 0x2D02EF8DL };

/*****************************************************************/ /* End of CRC Lookup Table */ /*****************************************************************/

--

John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux
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I never doubted any of that. I think the consistent picture is that Atmel has a clear understanding of its crafted business model and adheres well to it. That business model just isn't one that is largely congruent with mine.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

Can't comment for Atmel U.S. but I order samples to customers frequently. I don't worry too much if it is a homebrew or Fortune 50. The Atmel sample system seems to work much much better now than 15 months ago so if your experience is from that time, then you might want to retry it.

I think I read somewhere cost George Bush $100M to get reelected. I am sure that just a couple of M$ would get you a tiny11 sample.

--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
ulf@a-t-m-e-l.com
This message is intended to be my own personal view and it
may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

I think this is a misunderstanding´. The sample system was not really working before the end of 2004 and large customers got their samples because the direct sales force fought to get them. I think the sample ordering process is now functional so if a sample order is entered and parts are in stock, then they get shipped quite soon reagdless if dfortune 50 or not. There can be of course be times when the sample stock is dried up for a specific part.

--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
ulf@a-t-m-e-l.com
This message is intended to be my own personal view and it
may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

ht

I tried twice during 2005 to get samples, once of the mega16L and once of the mega8L. Since there were thousands available in distribution, I greatly doubt that there were no samples.

TI, Philips, Freescale, Analog Devices, Microchip, Maxim - all very generous with samples. TI and Freescale send them out from Digi-Key with no Digi-Key logo on the packing slip.

Reply to
larwe

Don't understand why. I check the complete sample log right now for my region 2005. There are three main reasons for samples not beeing shipped.

1) Part not in production, I.E not available to sample department. This should not affect mega16L/8L 2) Too many samples ordered, that puts stuff on hold. Max 5 AVRs per type is the general rule. An inexperienced internal sales engineer could order more, but then the sample order would not get shipped and needs manual followup to get the order shipped. If you avoid trying to get more than 5, you avoid this potential problem. It would be OK to order 5 x ATmega8L and 5 x ATmega16L. 3) Not shipped for unexplained reason. This is about 1% of all sample orders visible to me for the whole of 2005, so very very few compared to the total number of sample orders. It is not unlikely that they got the samples outside the system.

Maybe someone tried to get samples outside the system?

As you can see from above, basically everyone requesting things (that was shippable) got what they wanted. Really can't see why you had a problem.

Noone has ever told me to ship only to "large" customers. I think every one ordering samples get equal treatment by the "system", but large customers has the benefit of direct access to the Atmel sales force or get indirect attention through the distributors.

Atmel is supplying loads of chips to school and universities as well. In an exhibition in Sweden late 2004, all the universities were showing their projects, and ALL but one ran their projects on the AVR. I had to go and talk to the lonely wolf.. They had just completed the development of a course based on the PIC and were not interested at start but after some email conversation they decided to go for an AVR (AT90CAN128) in a large project (involving development of a racing car).

I passed by the IAR stand in another exhibition, and told them the story "Everyone but one is using the AVR, and now the one has changed as well :-)"

It turned out that the guy responsible for course development at that specific university was standing next to me when I told the story to the IAR guys. He told me that they have noted that while they were teaching PIC at the university, the students were selecting the AVR for their home projects :-) To make a long story short, now they have four courses on the AVR.

To support the thousands of sample requests a semiconductor company gets a

*process* is needed. This process was not in place inside Atmel 15 months ago, but I think the track record for 2005 is OK. When I look at shipments date (have no history here) I see that all orders entered early this week (or before) has certainly been shipped unless it has run into problems described above.

If I were you I would ask to have the Sample "Order Id" for any sample order not shipped within 1 or maybe 2 weeks. This is useful when you request a follow up.

--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
ulf@a-t-m-e-l.com
This message is intended to be my own personal view and it
may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

Me neither. But all I see is the customer front-end.

I ordered 3pcs on each occasion.

So, who do you ask? These requests were submitted using the online sample ordering process. No confirmation email, no number.

Reply to
larwe

Could be. If memory serves, this debacle lasted most of the year of

2002 (late Feb to mid Dec.) And I was interacting with local FAE, local dist., as well as Jaques (I think) in France. The local FAE (I continue to receive letters from him on the AT91 family) was totally focused on asking me only about our business prospects, while also apologizing for what he knew were long delays so far. It wasn't that there weren't parts, Ulf. He told me they had some. It was about who got them. Things were very late and I was worrying and he has asking those business questions he was supposed to ask because that's what his management wanted to know from me. Like Lewin, my experience with everyone else has been rather different and ... more accommodating without the undue stress.

Things may be much better, but there are so many good choices today. There isn't such a need to offer yet another hand in friendship after the last one was bitten off at the elbow, particularly when others are purring along nicely. I can afford the long memory.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

The samples orders are normally entered by an internal sales assistant. Which web site do you use?

--
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
ulf@a-t-m-e-l.com
This message is intended to be my own personal view and it
may or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB
Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

Amazingly, Ulf, I used

formatting link
to order samples from Atmel (?!)

The specific URL:

formatting link

Reply to
larwe

In article , larwe writes

I have found that business users have no problem getting samples. As you say you could call from work and get a sample.

Why would Atmel (or anyone ) supply free chips to home users? You can buy them through Maplin etc

Just because you won't use your work address to get a sample (like everyone else does) don't complain that the rest of the world will not change the system just for you.

Samples are there to generate business not to save money for hobby people.

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Reply to
Chris Hills

In article , larwe writes

Don't be too hard on Atmel. It is the same for all silicon companies. They are in business to sell as many chips as possible. Therefore they will concentrate of the big companies and their distributors onthe smaller ones.

It costs as much to send a sample to a big company that will order thousands as a small company that will only take the samples. The problem is not so much cost as time (which costs money).

TO send a sample to a company that is not going to buy any more parts probably costs 100 USD. Wages, shipping and TIME.

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Reply to
Chris Hills

Atmel doesn't need to apologize to anyone and no one needs to cut them slack, either. They simply are who they are.

Some companies will choose to specialize more towards one end of the market, some towards the other end, and some may try and straddle somewhere in between. But it's wise to select partners who are largely congruent with your own business model and to learn to avoid more, those where their interests aren't nearly as well aligned.

Nothing magic; no excuses needed; no apologies. Just select partners where they value the mutual relationship and where there is a lot of mutual ground in business direction (which helps you better estimate the future of the relationship.)

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

I wasn't "working from home." It was serious business. But Ulf does say that there were systemic problems, then.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

I wasn't asking for "free chips to a home user". It was a contract job. I was trying to decide which part to design in for a client's project with an estimated production volume of ~1500 per year and a production life of 3 years. Not an enormous volume, to be sure, but not a hobby project either. And those volumes were disclosed on the sample request form.

When I want chips to play with for my own projects, I pay for them; stop leaping to conclusions.

As a side note, I will point out that Freescale, Microchip, TI and Analog Devices at least have been very generous with samples on parts considerably more expensive than the micros in question, even when my sample request is clearly labeled as a hobby project.

I don't want to talk to the reps at my day job about hobby projects because I don't want to create a possibility of being accused of any kind of conflict of interest when designing in parts. Work stuff is work stuff, out-of-hours stuff is out-of-hours stuff. I find it hard to believe that nobody else follows the same principle.

Reply to
larwe

I was pretty sure this would be your case, started to say so, and then decided to let you speak for yourself on it.

My quantities were noted as between 2000-5000/yr, so in your ballpark. We had an existing project we were converting that was already selling at 5000/yr so the numbers were 'strong.'

I looked back and can see the text you wrote that _might_ have led Chris to assume otherwise -- though I have to admit that having read it I didn't make that same assumption about you and don't know why he chose to.

Indeed. I also had some Analog Devices chips shipped in packaging designed to keep humidity out that was probably way more expensive than the chips themselves, too. It was surprising to see so much care just in packing them. Never have I had the kind of grilling I got from Atmel, though.

I don't talk to reps about my hobby projects, at all. Period. I talk to friends, read, use my own experiences, etc.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

Hello Chris,

And that can be a huge mistake. It is the reason why my design-in rate for parts from several large European semi mfgs has plummeted from around 30% to nearly zilch. We are talking about stuff that went into mass production and still is, some of it for over 10 years now. And then they lament about sagging sales.

Suits me, I just would never buy stock in a company that thinks they can survive by catering to only the big ones.

Regards, Joerg

formatting link

Reply to
Joerg

your case may be 1:10 000 recently I hear from local big name distributor complain that Harris did last year $100K sample shipments to Bulgaria only for 6 month and they decided to cut off this service so somebody well abused their sample service (I guess this number should be accumulated by shipping $1.00 logic chips by FedEx) so you can imagine what happens in world wide measures and Atmel is one of most popular vendors If I was in Atmel shoes I would also left the local disti who know the market better to decide who really need sample and who just is harwesting free chips. If you really do design which later on go in mass production they would recognize you as keypartner.

sad truth to all small co. is that they do just fine this way

Best regards Tsvetan

--
PCB prototypes for $26 at http://run.to/pcb (http://www.olimex.com/pcb)
PCB any volume assembly (http://www.olimex.com/pcb/protoa.html)
Development boards for ARM, AVR, PIC, MAXQ2000 and MSP430
(http://www.olimex.com/dev)
Reply to
tusunov

Semiconductor distributors do not generally ask me about tools. They normally just want to know how many parts per year I expect to buy.

I have never experienced this. Distributors are quite happy to send me samples regardless. Even when just getting initial price and availability, they are keen to send samples too. And this is for just one or two hundred parts per year expected volume. For students etc. I imagine the situation is different; you would not really expect a semiconductor distributor to deal with private individuals at all.

Isn't it unusual to buy the tools from the semiconductor distributor? I am sure it does happen, but I would have thought that most people buy from specialists in development systems.

Hmmm, are you by any chance a commercial tools supplier? :)

--

John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

the smaller distributors also tend to carry tool lines as well but in this case I was thinking of the tools distributors who carry samples. Many do as a lot of places don't want to be hassled by silicon salesmen asking how many how soon all the time. They tend to have quarterly sales targets.

Some are some aren't. Also it depends if they know you.. (which can be a recursive argument.

The problem is sorting out the wheat from the chaff. This is often where it gets passed down the line from silicon company to distributor to the smaller tools/silicon disti.

There are quit a few silicon distributors who do carry tools (and tend to give them away as part of big chip sales) but also the tools distributors usually carry samples.

Yes, I thought everyone knew that. Never made a secret of it. I have presented at enough conferences and written enough articles not to try and hide. Though I don't use a company sig or advertise on this NG. BTW most of the tools and silicon companies have people on here.

I also supply samples and have done so to people in this NG and this thread. Even to those who argue against me on this topic and use GNU tools :-)

Chris

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Reply to
Chris Hills

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