Renesas Dev Boards **FREE**

[bigtoy]

I need to agree with Wise Man Metal. I have one of the Renesas boards, and although it's nice enough (I guess), I don't find their proprietary processor architecture particularly superior to a Cortex-M3/4 for example. Kudos to Renesas for trying to raise their visibility and marketshare outside of Japan, but I'm really not sold on it.

[CocaCola]

Just an update if anyone cares...  They finally sent me a denial letter (2 weeks later), it's a stock mass mailed denial letter, no specifics on denial, just telling me I'm denied but that I'm welcome to purchase their product from Digikey...  As before I'm far from impressed with their lack of professionalism and they have sealed their fate and this was simply a reminder...  Time to add them the spam filter because I'm sure they will proceed to spam me...

[GunMage]

Just an update if anyone cares...  They finally sent me a denial letter (2 weeks later), it's a stock mass mailed denial letter, no specifics on denial, just telling me I'm denied but that I'm welcome to purchase their product from Digikey...  As before I'm far from impressed with their lack of professionalism and they have sealed their fate and this was simply a reminder...  Time to add them the spam filter because I'm sure they will proceed to spam me...

Ditto - Canned rejection letters here as well.. Except for the ONE unit. I Also received a phone call today asking me about my intended annual use. I told them ZERO as I could not have a development group use only one unit to develop on. The response was "just purchase more". I stated why should I when the other MCU manufacturers were more than happy to assist with development tools. They had no response.

Now I just feel bad wasting people's time. 

[metal]

That's funny, indeed... Atmel and TI - according to my experience - will be happy to receive a call from a university, for example, and assist with dev. tools discounts, imagine what they do to to support companies.... Also Microchip, a friend told me that when the annual usage is larger than 1000, what ever you need, you will have a representative ready to fly and pay you a visit, discuss your future plans, etc...

Now, as long as your annual usage is 0, and you were honest, why would you lie any way, then the first impression is that you will not purchase any thing.. This is why they asked you to purchase more dev. tools, but usually for serious customers, they send them stuff for free, if not for free, then at least provide discount coupons.

Are you knew to this sort of business? You should know these things : )

[CocaCola]

Also Microchip, a friend told me that when the annual usage is larger than 1000, what ever you need, you will have a representative ready to fly and pay you a visit, discuss your future plans, etc...

Microchips have cracked down on samples to lower volume companies, but I believe I can still get 9 free chips every 3 months from them without any hassle... Or something like that, it's been awhile since I sampled...

And I just sampled a bunch of higher value Maxim parts, not cheap ones these were higher dollar LED/segment controllers that retail at $10-$17 a pop, no issues at all with the request...

And just for fun, a few years back I had sampled a SINGLE control knob from a company, retail value about $1 and they had a sales rep hound me for weeks trying to setup a face to face to discuss my future needs...  When I get a followup like that for dirt cheap knobs and I get such a lame followup form a company like Renesas it's really telling on their desire to actually support their product...

Posted on: August 23, 2012, 01:01:56 01:01 - Automerged

Now I just feel bad wasting people's time. 

Not a waste of time, I now know not to consider them in the future and I did get the cheapy test module that I'm sure I can whip up something useful with...

[GunMage]

Are you knew to this sort of business? You should know these things : )

No I am not. I have been doing this for 25+ years. I am currently an engineering manager and have been in companies previously that a typical EAU would of been 25K parts annual. Today I am in a very custom engineering niche. Very hostile enviornment, very customized, very customer specific. That being the case a large run for me now is 10.

When I filled out the form for the  RX62N - I put my EAU @ 50. Which is resonable and honest. When he called and told me to buy more. THAT was when I said my EAU would be ZERO and we would no longer pursue Renesas. We thought we would seriously look into using them. I figured since they have a huge market share and were looking to expand as they had lost some in 2011 that they would be more apt to help people change architectures. Guess I was not correct. It is not worth the $$ investment to change the way we are operate.

Just some market share reference:
http://www.isuppli.com/PublishingImages/Press%20Releases/2011-12-01_Market_Share_Table1.jpg

[govtcontact]

From reading the previous posts, it sounds as though Renesas made very few new customers.  I don't know why, but I was able to get 2 dev boards, the RX62N and the RL78/G13.  I told them that annual purchases would be <10 units, but I did state it was for university/education projects.

When I got a phone call from the local rep, I was given a voucher for $500 USD to help me with travel and expenses to go to a conference that Renesas was hosting.  (Cant make it due to schedule).

The other thing that impressed me was the rep didn't press me to buy more items, nor has he called more than once nagging me like some reps do.

Though I have yet to remove the dev boards from their package, with my experience I wont cross Renesas off my list....yet.

[solutions]

A lot of marketers will pass on any opportunity(customer) they do not recognize, some actually go to the trouble of asking the rep.

My understanding is that Renesas is primarily focused on domestic Japanese by management dictate, but, as was said, why would you not use a mainstream microccontroller  unless you are a huge OEM who has special requirements for which a device is customized, or willing to be customized for you (which Renesas does for automotive, as an example).

What's stupid is that marketing already knows these huge people and gives them free boards (some idiots still try to sell a huge customer a board, as if the company's profitability depended on it). There are a lot of stupid/incompetent/inexperienced people in marketing these days and the more expensive and competent ones are unemployed (including someone you know).

Vote with your wallet. Make the weak and stupid go bankrupt, like they should. The sad part is that the demon seed then gets dispersed into the "good" suppliers.

[GunMage]

I guess the intial thought was that it may have been a good thing. I am always looking to leverage the best technology I can. Doesn't really matter what the source. For me if it makes sense and is the best design option we will try to incorporate it into a design.
As my large builds are 5-10 units I never get the attention of my suppliers in the sense of a top tier account. Obviously this did not pan out and that just means we stick to what we know and use. That being Microchip and Atmel.

For those that benefited from my inital post, I am glad it worked out. As for my personal experience, it was kind of a waste. The thing that amuses me the most is that I would of figured that such a major chip manufacturers would want to help you design in their product. Even with my lower numbers I am always getting "Love" from Linear, National Semi, TI, and others.

[solutions]

Having worked at the companies on your list, smart companies (which have competent people working in them) know that you could wind up at a top tier account, either by jumping jobs or a company acquisition, and that you will not forget your treatment as a little guy.

One of the biggest fears of the idiots is providing support to a 5-10 unit customer, so they charge $5000 for an eval kit (one idiot semiconductor company I worked at had an eval kit for $30,000)....they don't realize that it's not expected by the little guy, and that it's a very pleasant experience for Mr 1-10 Units to get an answer from a live person, placing the company on the "preferred" list of choices no matter where the designer winds up.

[GunMage]

The other thing that eludes them is the fact I/we do not work/live in a bubble. I am consistenly in touch with other engineers and those engineers are always asking my opinions/thoughts as I have been around the industry for some time. Those same engineers are at the TOP tier companies (>50K units annually). Word of mouth does have some merit and now when asked about Renesas, I know what I will say. It is actually kind of funny I was asked about Renensas just today as of of my collegues saw a magazine ad for the "free" dev kit.

[Mworks]

I have one of the demo boards and the thing that I found really annoying with Renesas was the information provided targets the micrium OS. I really do not like companies that try to push not only hardware but software that cost even more.  I prefer they give me hardware but not require me to use only their software.

[George]

I have received both of these boards and a number of the other free promotions they've run (ie, RPBRX62NPRB). I generally request them for hobbyist use with my work email. They also sent me 2x books covering Micrium uC OSIII on different architectures of theirs. We use one of their uC's at work (SH7264, if memory serves).

Overall, not impressed with anything Renesas. HEW sucks, their custom compilers SUCK, and they have some of the worst reps I've ever seen. Only good thing? They're paying my registration, flight, and hotel for DevCon in Cali next month. Of that, I approve.

[SteveyG]

I might try requesting one of these, if I get a denial with no chance to speak to the sales rep then I'll never use them for my work. Simple :-)

[Magnox]

I think it's very short-sighted of Renesas to only offer the free boards to certain countries; what's wrong with Europe? We are offered the option to buy them from RS!

[GunMage]

I might try requesting one of these, if I get a denial with no chance to speak to the sales rep then I'll never use them for my work. Simple :-)

try it... My recent experience says it isn't worth the hassle of even filling out the form. I have seen one board sent out out of 20 requests (RN62). However if you want the little RL78 those seem much easier to get.