If you mean a PCBA shop, Mouser or DigiKey can ship your order directly to your favorite PCBA place.
Now if you want to develop against a chip on a 10 year outlook, go for it. But if you want to get work done this week, or this month, or even this year, I'd argue that the distribution is too premature to make that a smart decision.
I can order 3000+ from Microchip's website right now for any of the AVR Dx series. And Microchip has decades-long reputation of a solid supply chain, even in the 2020 COVID19 period when STM32 got issues.
--------
The older chips are fully obsolete compared to these modern designs. The newer AVR DD is cheaper, faster, loses the Voltage-slowdown issue (1.8V is only qualified for like 4MHz on ATMega328. 1.8V on AVR DD can go full 24MHz), etc. etc.
I don't see any reason why anyone would ever choose the decades-old ATMega328 when AVR DD is right here, cheaper and better in every conceivable way. One exception: if you really need the ATMega328 pinout _exactly_ because you can't change the PCB or update the electronics, I can understand legacy issues. But new projects should pretty much switch to AVR Dx or AVR Ex (depending on your project's needs, since the different chips specialize in different purposes). Ditto for legacy software because ATMega328 peripherals are older. (Modern TimerA and TimerB are much better than ATMega328's legacy Timer0 and Timer1)
I didn't say that China didn't have most of the world's production. What I said is that a large number of Chinese chips are counterfeit. So when we're talking about discussion points like:
> Even then, outside of launch-time near-shore marketing-land, the chips currently cost double the old ones.
Well, have you done the QA to assure that these "old chip lots" are actually legitimate AVR ATMega328pb or are they some king of counterfeit chip? I know the STM32 chips in a lot of Chinese shops are just clever replicas, and that's key to their lower prices.
I don't fully trust prices, especially of old stock in China.
---------
China has enormous potential in terms of electronics manufacturing. But the supply chain problem / counterfeit problem certainly exists. No matter how clever their replicas get, there are minor concerns about power-delivery differences or minor differences to the ADC (or whatever). Maybe the counterfeit chips are good enough for your projects, or maybe not. But its still a concern that floats in the back of my mind, especially if the prices are much cheaper than the legitimate sources.
Like: maybe the chips don't sleep quite as low power as a legitimate chip, or the ADC is slightly less linear than a legitimate chip. Etc. etc. Minor differences that with good testing you could actually work with the counterfeit and get a usable product, but a risk nonetheless if you have an old design that depends on the specifications of the original.
----------
Here's a Hackaday on some STM32 counterfeits they found: https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-ba...
this is like saying 'south africa has enormous potential in terms of diamond mining' or 'the us has enormous potential in terms of mass shootings'. china had enormous potential in terms of electronic manufacturing 30 years ago. today, electronics manufacturing outside of china is a footnote. an increasing number of manufacturers don't bother to produce non-chinese-language datasheets. in this context, if a chip's availability in china is sketchy, that's reason to question its viability
the hackaday article does start with talking about stm32 counterfeits but is mostly about legitimate clones, most of which are improvements over st's chips
There are pretty much two solutions. Either you more closely handle supply chain issues yourself by buying from the OEM or reputable sources (which increases costs). Or you accept the counterfeits as good enough. Based on this discussion, you've gone with the second option which is fine. But it's something people should know about your argument.
You CANNOT compare prices in the way you've been doing in your argument. That's all I'm saying.
When we compare OEM ATMega328pb vs AVR64DD32, the OEM prices for AVR DD is cheaper. That's the ground truth.
The methodology you've chosen as the basis of your argument is not accounting for the huge, well known risks of counterfeit ATMega328.
i agree that there's a counterfeit problem, and it's worse in china, but that's irrelevant to my argument
i don't think it makes sense to say that i'm trying to make china look better. you're painting a pants-on-head absurd picture of china's role in electronics manufacturing, apparently taken from some kind of incredible propaganda. i'm just giving you the basic facts that everyone agrees on but you don't know yet
The pricing estimates discussed earlier have to be factored against the well known, widespread counterfeits. Especially because ATMega328 is a well known counterfeited chip, and the Chinese market well known for being full of not only counterfeits in general, but even counterfeits of this specific chip under discussion.
You cannot compare chip prices like the poster did earlier. And all this Chinese vs whatever discussion you're trying to distract me with aside doesn't change the core fact.
you're right that availability of counterfeits isn't real availability, but i think you're vastly exaggerating the seriousness of that problem. a more likely reason for chinese distributors lowering their prices for the atmega328 is that it's not appealing for new designs, so they need to offload their leftover inventory
That they're in limited stock at a particular outlet in China means very little, no? And conversely, that STM32 chips happened to be in stock in 2018 meant very little in the following four years.
If you want the chips right now, you can have them. If you want long-term availability, either buy ahead of the time or sign a contract with the manufacturer (and hope it doesn't fall apart due to a geopolitical crisis or whatnot).
While Microchip has offices in Thailand, I thought these chips were made in Taiwan??