Times are changing. You can get 32-bit MCUs for under $0.30. This will continue to fall as fabs used for MCUs are 15 years behind the high end stuff, so they have at least that much more Moore's law in them.
You can say that 8-bit ones are always going to be cheaper (you can get some for under $0.03 now) but at some point packaging not silicon costs will dominate. Also programmer productivity is very often worth more than a few cents of BOM cost, which is why we are seeing HLL languages used more often in embedded space even in production settings.
As a side note, the NRF52 listed in article have a 32 bit config register per pin (granted the pin direction is separately mapped as 32 bit word per port).
The same thing was said when C# came out, 20 years ago. "Now hardware is cheaper and software costlier"... "C# is the language of the future and will replace X language (and X++ too)"... "Just add some GB of RAM to the server and that's it, since it costs nothing".
Still, we see everyday new articles on HN about new "low-level" or "system" languages, with focus on performance, speed, safety and whatever, on today's hardware. Even today, there is still a need to write low-level, fast software, trying to squeeze every cycle and bit of RAM. And C and C++ are still alive.
> Also programmer productivity is very often worth more than a few cents of BOM cost.
Guess what would happen if I say my boss that a $0.03 MCU can do the same thing as a $0.30 MCU? What would my boss choose? My mental health, or his pocket?
$0.27 x 1000000 = $270000. That's another Ferrari.
You can say that 8-bit ones are always going to be cheaper (you can get some for under $0.03 now) but at some point packaging not silicon costs will dominate. Also programmer productivity is very often worth more than a few cents of BOM cost, which is why we are seeing HLL languages used more often in embedded space even in production settings.
As a side note, the NRF52 listed in article have a 32 bit config register per pin (granted the pin direction is separately mapped as 32 bit word per port).