According to the GreenPak web site they have shifted 100millon units in 18 months production (around 200,000 units/day). This is a significant figure. The 555 became as popular as it did because of a number of reasons, it was a superbly versatile chip, it was cheap, and it was widely available but most of all because it was so well supported by the end user. This included the hobby market as well as mass production and all helped in achieving critical mass, so to answer the original question 'Could this be the new 555' the answer has got to be 'No' unless they change their marketing strategy. In fact it is likely to die quite quickly if it concentrates it's efforts on it's present markets of rehashing mature products to remove the logic glue chip count. This will eventually dry up and not return, therefore they must find new markets to sell into and compete with modern designs or end up as a niche product, their present marketing is counter productive in this area