SparkFun Forums

[qdot]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get my feet wet at product design (at a tech startup). Specifically, I want to have a microcontroller/bluetooth interface, as cheaply as possible, looking at 10k production run in the short term, and 100k run before major redesign.

What baffles me, is that I have spent a considerable amount of time looking at Digikey, Mouser, etc.. and the best I can come up with is a BoM of $12 for the interface.

It screams totally in the face of a $3 HCI dongle, made somewhere in china. That must imply at most $1.5 BoM. Is there a plausible explanation for that? Chipsets that are unlicensed knockoffs?

[rmteo1]

This is true for just about anything concerning consumer electronics. Take a look at www.dealextreme.com for example.

[lyndon]

The "plausible explanation" is that your 10k units are a drop in the bucket compared to the Bluetooth dongle's sales. Their sales are probably orders of magnitude above yours so they get pricing to match!

Digikey is not really the place to go to for high quantity orders. Once you get above 1k units of a $5+ component, it's time to talk to actual manufacturer's reps who can get you much better pricing.

Go to the website of the manufacturer you are interested in and see who represents your geographic region and give them a call. At 100k units projected they'll most likely want to be friends with you.

[stevech]

Digikey is not really the place to go to for high quantity orders. Once you get above 1k units of a $5+ component, it's time to talk to actual manufacturer's reps who can get you much better pricing.

Surprised that the OP is unaware of this, and is discussing 10K unit builds on this forum!

[matthelm]

Also, at a guess, the PC and it's driver are doing 99% of the data processing, while the one you are looking at, the chip does maybe 1/2 the low level processing?

[mikeselectricstuff]

If you're doing a 10-100K run you probably shouldn't be buying BT modules from Digikey & Mouser, or using them as a price gide. A specialist distributor can probably find something a lot cheaper for these volumes. Not sure you'll hit $5 though.

[ribbotson]

The low cost dongles are often built around the CSR BC41B143 which is available from Digikey. Not much external circuit is needed. You don't say what processor you might use, but you could use one with USB host(AVR32, AT90C1287, PIC32) and use the low cost dongle. The CSR chip has both UART and USB interface. Also you don't say what bluetooth profile you want. The chips come in HCI or RFCOMM/SPP configuration.
I would contact CSR if I were you.

[Symmetry TME]

Hello,

I am a Technical Marketing Engineer with Symmetry Electronics specializing in wireless technology.

Symmetry is the franchised distributor for BlueGiga and Roving Networks (both use CSR chipsets in their modules)

Taking a look at your inquiry, I think we might be able to help you with your design.

Please email me at your earliest convenience and we can start a dialogue, and if you have any technical questions I can help to answer those as well.

-B

http://www.semiconductorstore.com/pages ... ID=63&ID=36