How do I plan a long range product with microcontroller that needs long term support?

Question

I need to use a microcontroller on a system that must stay working without major changes for a long time (decades). To ensure that there always will be replacement parts, I need a microcontroller that will be long run produced or produced by some manufactures in a firmware binary and encapsulation pin compatible way. What can I do to ensure that the microcontroller I choose meets these criteria?

The application doesn't need much computing power. Its aim is to control motors and other industrial systems. A microcontroller of 8 bits capable of changing the state of about 8-16 IO pins at a frequency of 0.5-1 MHz is OK. An ADC may be valuable, but can be replaced by a simple external comparator.

Answer 1

The FPGA manufacturers say if you use a 'soft core', that is, a microcontroller written in VHDL, then that VHDL design can be implemented on any future programmable FPGA hardware, thus freeing you from the likelyhood of any particular piece of hardware going out of production.

To buy that argument, you would need to assume that programmable hardware will continue to be available over your timespan (which is probable), and will continue to be available in chip sizes, costs and voltages that will suit your product (which I find harder to believe). To use this approach, you would have to accept that you may need to do a new hardware design to accept a new package, which kinda defeats your object of no major changes.

My approach, and my advice would be, to isolate your control processing from the rest of the circuitry on a small board, and define your own interface to it, the fewer pins the better. Perhaps SPI makes a suitable interface, or a nybble bus with data read/write and address strobes. Then if your chosen processor becomes obsolete during the product lifetime, you only have to redesign and test a small board, rather than a large board with vital analogue product functions on it.

Program the control processor in C. Split your code strictly into generic algorithm, and hardware interface modules. Then if particular bits of hardware have to change, you have isolated the rewrite to a small number of modules, and are not crawling all over your code.

Choose a suitable voltage, I'd prefer 3.3v to 5v for instance.

When you choose your small control board, you could do worse than to pick a form factor that matches an available Arduino or PIC dev board. Then, your development and prototyping get a leg-up, and you could even start low run production with bought modules before designing a lower cost replacement.

Answer 2

Don't forget to consider the reliability of your programming toolchain. If there's special-purpose programming hardware, it also needs to last for decades, and you have to be able to talk to it. Imagine having to dig up a 20-30 year old DOS PC and install an ISA card -- don't forget to manually select the IRQ and DMA lines! Alternately, you might have to buy an expensive niche product that offers backwards compatibility. If you might need to modify the software, remember that compiler tools and libraries also change, often much faster than the hardware.

Also consider how long the MCU needs to function. If you want it to have a decent chance of running for many decades, you need to consider things like flash memory retention and long-term failure rates. If you're going to swap out the chip every ~15 years, that's not as big a problem. Manufacturers should have this information. Instead of going cheap, you might look at MCUs designed for safety-critical applications like aerospace or automotive. They often come with redundant hardware and better quality guarantees.

One option could be to store your own spare parts. If you buy enough, you might be able to get an MCU with a custom mask ROM and avoid the programming/data retention problem altogether.

Make sure everything is very well documented. The MCU itself, the software, memory allocation, CPU instruction set, all electrical interfaces, specifications, etc.

Give user44635's answer serious consideration. What happens if your supply of replacement parts dries up in 30 years, and any reasonable replacements all have 1.8V IOs? Or the oldest chips you can find all have 32-bit ARM CPUs (which are starting to devour the 8-bit market)? A separate board gives you the option of adding voltage regulators, level shifters, and other interface hardware if the worst happens.

Answer 3

While some manufacturers have a better record than others, long product life vs. obsolescence of critical components is addressed on the operations level rather than on circuit design level.

Maintain an ongoing forecast of the quantity of microcontrollers that you will require. Monitor the supply chain. When the manufacturer announces NRND status, you - or your operations - should prickle ears. When the manufacturer announces upcoming obsolescence, they will give you right of last order. You procure the quantity which you have forecasted, and store in a flameproof cabinet.

This is not uncommon in certified industries such as medical device, avionics, defense. I have seen people do this. For example, an OEM supplier X produces WiFi modules for medical device field. The module uses a plain civilian vanilla SoC for WiFi. The SoC is produced by Broadcom for consumer market. The SoC is expected to stay in production only of a year or two. OEM supplier X is aware of this dynamics. They procure 10 years worth of these SoC. OEM supplier X charges premium for a part with a guaranteed long product life. OEM's customers stave-off costly re-certification of their product.

Typically, devices that require long-term support are manufactured in relatively small quantities.

Answer 4

An alternative approach is to use the most generic part you can find, and in the case of MCUs it is the 8051 and its variants. There are many sources for it, even an open source soft core clone, the development tools are available for any platform from DOS to Windows 10. While Microchip is commendable for its commitment, it is not possible to predict the corporate appetite for mergers and acquisition and its impact on product lines and PIC has only one source.

Answer 5

Microchip is probably your best choice if you need pin compatible parts. They have been very slow to fully retire even slow-selling products such as the OTP 17 series, and, as Olin says, Sanghi has expressed a corporate philosophy of maintaining supply through boom and bust as well as continued availability of parts, which is also very important (a part you can't get for 52 weeks, as has happened to some of us with suppliers such as M*t****a, might as well have been discontinued entirely). Part obsolescence can be triggered by falling sales, but also changes in process are a factor. Microchip owns their own fabs and can stockpile chips in wafer form even if they retire a process. Fabless companies must use whatever processes they can source from the foundrys.

Definitely avoid anything trendy- it's not unusual to find parts that are EOL after a few years. It's hard to quantify but parts that are used in cell phones would not be expected to be around all that long. A part that has been around for 5 years and is selling in volume to a stable and broad customer base (not just 3 tablet makers) is a better bet than a new chip that is in high demand right now, despite being 5 years through its product lifetime already. In the case of parts that require qualification testing (such as radiation testing) and even changes in packaging may jeopardize that, you may be able to do a lifetime buy.

For better or worse, there are very few microcontroller parts that have a true second source, and the ones that do (such as ye olde 8051 core parts) are not all that attractive in performance or cost.

As an out-of-box suggestion, I would suggest considering going through the entire design process with two fairly similar parts (eg. two ARM chips of a similar core type) but from different manufacturers and qualify both. That would only add a small amount to the total cost if it's all done up-front but it would give much better confidence of continued supply. The downside is that every revision requires testing on both parts, and whichever gets picked as the primary source will have more field history.

Answer 6

The simplest solution, is to have enough spare parts stored to provide the length of time required. If your part has a MTTF of 10 years, and you need to provide support for 100 years, you need to store 10 of them. If you need to provide this support to 100 "stations," then you need a total of 1,000. To ensure these parts are available when needed, you obviously need to store them in various "safe" locations. If the cost of this "insurance policy" is reasonable, you may want to double it, to take care of any unexpected failures.