fungus:
JoeN:
It's fairly expensive and has a small number of pins and raw compute power and memory compared to ARM.It's not all about "raw compute power and memory". Sometimes you just need an Uno with a bit more RAM and/or a few extra serial ports and I/O pins.
Great. What real world application did it make it into under these circumstances? If this was a hobby application, I totally understand why someone would use it. I've used them. But I can't believe that Atmel designed this chip just for hobby apps. There just aren't enough hobbiests in the world to make it worthwhile. They had to have designed it with real world applications in mind, something with at least somewhat of a higher volume in mind. I am at a loss in figuring out what it might be though. I know the lower end chips go out in hundreds of millions of products a year - toys, remotes, small appliances, etc.. I am just trying to figure out what the 2560 is used for. The way it is priced, I just can't see how it would make it into many real high-volume products.