I've looked around in the forum quite a bit but I wasn't able to find any information to the following questions:
1. ESP8266 schematic (http://wiki.iteadstudio.com/File:ESP8266_Schematic.jpg): What is the 8 pin component apart from the ESP8266EX?
2. ESP8266 vs CC3200 vs BCM43622: Suppose I wanted to integrate the ESP8266 into my board and I was building about 10 000 pieces of my board, am I really better off with a CC3200 (or a BCM43622, like what the Spark Core uses)? I understand that the dev cost for the other chips is much lower than with the ESP8266 because of dedicated support staff but what if (ok, fine this is super optimistic) we decide to scale up production?
3. ESP8266 for production: There are many breakout boards for the ESP8266. In a production scenario, do you suggest integrating the breakout board with the base board? Or integrating the ESP8266 individual components with the base board? I assume that the gerber files are in the public domain, aren't they? In addition, if we integrate the individual components with the base board, I'm able to find the ESP8266EX on taobao but not on alibaba. Are there severe quantity issues with the ESP8266EX such that alibaba doesn't show any suppliers?