145c atmega328p Pro Minis

[ralphd]

I love how Shenzhen manages to make electronics cheaper and cheaper.  This weekend I found "straight input" (no regulator) Pro Minis going for 145c:
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?keywords=atmega328p-pu

I think I've only used the on-board regulator once, and that was just to test if it worked with 12V in.  The rest of the time I power them from 5V or 3.5V.
From looking at the board it seems they didn't bother with a .1uF decoupling cap between Vcc and Gnd.  The pads for the regulator pins look like they're 0.1" spacing, which I find works great for 0805 parts.  In other words just solder a surface-mount .1uF cap between the Vcc and Gnd pads.

For comparison, I checked the price of a 328P-PU at Digi-key: 370c.  So for the price of 2 328P-PUs, you can get 5 Pro Minis.

I've noticed Mouser is starting to show stock on the ATmega168PBs, so once they make it in volume to the China market I think we will see 99c Pro Minis.  Maybe by Christmas?