On 10/25/06, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net wrote:
After some digging I found a much cheaper source. Segor electronics ( http://www.segor.de/ ) sells single PLCC32 plug-ins for 14.00 Euro (including 16% german sales tax). Quantities above 10 cost 11.20 Euro per part. If you're ordering from the US, you can get a tax refund (or maybe the tax won't even be applied in the first place).
Neat, I'll look into those.
Wait a second. You mean socketed flash chips won't be present on future mainboards? Are there no socketed SPI chips or will the ROM storage itself be integrated into the south bridge?
SPI is becoming a darling boot source, it is only 2 wires, and the ROMs are physically much smaller, but are similar densities to PLCCs. SPIs right now are mostly SO-8s, and socketing SO-8s is an expensive thing to do (much more expensive than a PLCC socket). The SPI ROMs themselves, however, are cheaper than their LPC/FWH PLCC counterparts. That is what makes me think SPI will take over soon. Maybe that is wrong, and PLCCs will last 5 more years, who knows. (NAND may also be a near term option on some southbridges)