Teensy 3.2 - product life cycle

Status
Not open for further replies.

dimitre

Well-known member
Hello, I'm just wondering here if there is a planned life cycle for Teensy 3.2.
It is my favorite Teensy, talking about form / function, handling etc.
Love the 3.6 too but for most projects I don't need the extra pins and power.

As I know the chip availability is decreasing for some reason I would like to know if is there some plan to keep 3.2 a specific number of years on market
or if there is a plan of a substitute pin compatible one.

Thank you!
 
Paul pointed out after the demise of the 3.0/3.1 that models tend to persist as long as there is no functional replacement for them. Hence T2s are still available. The 3.0/3.1 are replaced by LC and 3.2.

I would like to see a 14x2 form factor with 3.6 speed for audio projects as you tend to not need very many pins but do sometimes need the extra horsepower (and with an SD reader on the Audio board there's not much need for one on the Teensy).

Or maybe a mid-size form factor but with an audio codec built in.
 
Disclaimer first, nothing in this message is any sort of guarantee.

Now, with that out of the way, I can tell you we're definitely planning to keep Teensy 3.2 available. It's currently the most popular model.

Of course everything depends on NXP continuing to make the chip. Lately they've had supply issues, which is a challenge in the short term. Robin has been putting in a pretty incredible amount of unseen work, with the result being all the 32 bit Teensy boards remaining in stock.

This may sound strange, but I believe these recent shortages a very positive sign for the long-term availability. Apparently the entire Kinetis product line is doing very well for NXP, with huge increases in demand starting about a year or two back. I must admit, when NXP acquired Freescale, I and many others wondered what would become of the formerly competing Freescale Kinetic & NXP LPC product lines. Even without the companies merging, when a large corporation's product line isn't selling well, that's when it's in the most peril. It's looking pretty good for Kinetis to have a long-term future.

Robin & I are pretty reluctant to discontinue older products which still get used, even when it probably would make good business sense. Ages ago, we kept making those MP3 player boards and 8051 boards long beyond the point any other company would have stopped. The main question now is usually about the older Teensy 2.0 and Teensy++ 2.0 boards. I recently updated the website with info. Between the parts we have on hand and the parts currently scheduled, it's looking like we'll have those older boards until sometime in 2020. No decision is final at this point, but eventually the sun will set on the old 8 bit boards, perhaps in 2020 or 2021.

As for Teensy 3.2, there's absolutely no plans to discontinue. We're also not planning any sort of direct upgrade at this time, but the "hole" in version numbers between 3.2 to 3.5 (which was originally going to be 3.4, but the idea of "5" and 5V tolerance was a compelling suggestion) was done with the idea of maybe replacing 3.2 with 3.3. If we ever do such a thing, which is a very big "if" at this point, it would still be the same processor, same pinout, same everything else from a software compatibility perspective, just like 3.1 -> 3.2. The likely change for 3.2 -> 3.3 would be a stronger USB connector like the one we have a Teensy 3.5 & 3.6, or maybe even a USB-C connector when all new PC laptops start to look like the current Macbook Pro without any USB-A ports. The voltage regulator might turn into a switcher. The series diode might become a mosfet. Or there might never be a Teensy 3.3. All these maybes are so very far in the future....

In the nearer future, the plan is Teensy 4.x using NXP's upcoming iMXRT chips. This has already been discussed elsewhere on this forum, probably more than I should have done. I'm not going to say any more at this time, other than beta testers will be chosen by PJRC similarly to how we've done in the past. The one thing you can do to reduce your chances of getting early hardware or info is sending me a private email or private message on any social networking site (yes, a few people have...) This forum is were everything gets discussed & shared.

Again, none of this is any sort of guarantee.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top