Strange, I had never heard of Renasas before. Not a very big hobbyist presence, not that it matters.
I've kinda looked at their processors, but I guess they haven't given me a reason to use them.
I tend to reach for PICs or AVRs for low end stuff, and move up to ARM chips
(usually Atmel or TI (formerly Luminary Micro) for heavier lifting. What's their compelling
story for me to try their chips? I don't know.
I've occasionally dabbled out of this comfort zone, i.e. some Sharp processors and
Analog Devices BlackFin processors, but that's about it.
OK, so for fun, I randomly picked one of their 8bit flash processors,
the UPD78F9211GR
Plugged it into findchips.com, got two hits at Digikey, no stock at all. Got some
hits at Arrow, no stock. Even if I could buy it from Digikey, minimum qty is 400.
Get real.
Now put in PIC16F877A. 8 distributors, they all have stock, and I can buy qty 1, not 400.
Which chip am I likely to use?
Yeah, the comparison is probably not fair for a number of reasons, but you get the idea.
Scott