&gt; At Volume Pricing 8 Bit PICs are pretty much incomparable to ARMs. A quick check on Digikey shows that for 10000 pieces, the cheapest 8 Bit Micro is a PIC10 - 35Cents&#x2F;Unit (that&#x27;s for today only)... The cheapest ARM Cortex M3&#x2F;M0 or even a ARM7 is $1+.<p>I don&#x27;t think that statement reflects the situation today.<p>Cost differences at the low end have become increasingly narrow, where they are present at all. Using just Digikey pricing at 10k, as above, it&#x27;s easy to find M0&#x2F;M0+ parts in the range of $0.40--$0.50&#x2F;ea at 10k.<p>&gt; The smallest 8 Bit micros from Atmel or Microchip or any 8051 is around 3x3mm. Most ARM micros are much larger.<p>These parts are obviously available in a range of package sizes, but the smallest M0+ MCUs are also 3x3mm.