If you intend to keep a product alive for longer times and keep maintaining it you damn well hope either Cypress the unicorn company stays alive for that long and still produces the chip you used (at least c compatible one) or you have used standard products that is easily replaceable.
Thats one of the almost un-achievable aspects of the hi tech biz these days. One only has to look
at the history since 70s of the number of very big companies that have been absorbed or gone out
of business, Philips, National....Whole product lines spun off into oblivion. And who is trained to see
the future ?
Insofar as Cypress is concerned, look at the annual reports as a starting point. Basically they have an
industry standard core coupled with a process that can handle mixed signal. That aspect one could
comfortably state will continue to experience demand. Look at the roadmap, also the frequency of tool
updates, release of new families, parts, as a way of telling if they are viable. The Cypress MCD div shipped
almost ~$1B in 2016.
Having all major components separated means I can swap parts without respinning the board
should one vendor ceased business.
Of course there are reliability issues with that approach. Power issues. And if a competitor sees those
increased costs and your market is sizable that's an opportunity to attack that solution. Eg. because
that solution has increased procurement, assembly costs, just a fact of life.
For sure no one in their right mind would claim PSOC came from God. It has its place, seems like in its
history of shipments it found good fit in many products.
Lastly published unit pricing is notoriously inaccurate. Direct contact with Cypress reps and field sales
will give a much more accurate picture of costs. Especially future pricing estimates.
Regards, Dana.