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I am looking for components which works at high temperature. Especially I am looking for microcontrollers which works at 180 °C to 200 °C. I need to found microcontroller which works fine at extreme conditions. If the microcontroller have built in CAN interface then it would be really nice? or any other methods and microcontrollers that i can use for my project. The purpose microcontrollers is to get information from different sensors and perform some calibration.

I found one microcontroller from TEXAS which is SM320F28335-HT but the cost of that microcontroller is very expensive. Is there any microcontroller with low cost and works at high temperature.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Alot of high temperature handling micro controllers are expensive due to the costs involved in making it able to withstand such heat, so most of them will be expensive, if not all of them. Try looking around Atmel, perhaps they might have something that fits your specifications \$\endgroup\$
    – Sim
    May 8, 2013 at 8:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ For those special use cases, that is not to bad... Good luck with the rest of the board. \$\endgroup\$
    – MadHatter
    Apr 3, 2019 at 20:06

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When doing down-hole stuff for oil and gas - my guess is the cost of a chip is not going to make any difference on the economics of your whole project.

You may be spending more money on time wasted looking to save even $100 in parts.

Say you cost $100 per hour (salaries + overhead). Not unreasonable if you are a good engineer. Say you save $100 by spending 20 hours searching for a cheaper part. That's amazingly good savings on a single microcontroller. Say you build 100 units per year. That's a lot of units in that industry, even though you may destroy one in every job you do.

Your added engineering cost is 20 x $100 = $2000. Your saved production cost is 100 x $100 = $10000 per year.

Looks like a great deal, but if your project is valuable to customers. In that industry that means a lot of money. Say $100.000 per job. And say you can do 100 jobs per year.

That's $10M per year.

Now those 20 hours you finished late because you wasted time searching for a cheaper part ends up costing your company 20/(8 x 200) x $10M = $125.000 (if and if and if... I, know - but you get the idea).

My short answer: Stop searching when you have found something that works well. Unless you are making 1K-10K units per year or more... Build it and start making money instead of blindly focusing on BOM cost.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think this XKCD comic is mandatory here... :) \$\endgroup\$
    – woliveirajr
    May 8, 2013 at 12:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Very valid point, add in the fact that during drilling that the rig is charging $1000's/hour or maybe $10,000"s/hour then the additional cost means nothing. \$\endgroup\$
    – placeholder
    May 8, 2013 at 15:24
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Currently, I work for a company that has a processor that still is functional at 300C. One thing that you need to look at is how long do you need this processor to operate at elevated temperatures. Lifetime at temperature is extremely important when considering what parts to use in an extreme temperature project.

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