8 ms·
$1 Microcontrollers (2017)
- rmbyrro 5y agoIt's amazing that humanity can produce this sort of hardware under $1. This has implications that are more profound than previous industrial revolutions. In centuries from now, our time will be studied as a remarkably revolutionary one.
- baybal2 5y agoIn fact, even $1 microcontrollers are considered very expensive by industry standards. Cheapest micros hovered around 10 cents mark before the semiconductor crisis. Some Padauk micros go for single cents.
- agumonkey 5y ago10cents dual core 32 bits arch ?
- throwaway81523 5y agoThe 10 cent mcus that I know of are 8 bitters, which is fine for plenty of purposes.
- supercucklchaim 5y agoI find it amazing as well, now we can sleep at night knowing progress will potently progress.
- pjmlp 5y agoGiven our love for destruction, and ongoing events, it will be talked about the same way as we talk about Babylon, Egypt, Sumerian, ancient Roman and Greece, Aztecs and Mayas.
- 4ggr0 5y agoI would argue that this kind of price is only doable because people and resources are being exploited for it. Not specifically only for these microcontrollers, but most our consumer products in general. In a worst case scenario, the resources for this $1 microcontroller were mined by an african child, barely earning anything. These resources are then shipped to China(probably), where people along the way don't earn much either. Except the white collar workers managing it all, of course. These controllers are then built in a factory, either by robots, or low-earning workers. Then shipped to a warehouse. For me, the fact that such things can be bought so cheaply is not really an achievement if we look at how broken the supply chains are if we consider the humans who are affected by them. And also the environment which gets destroyed quite a bit. I am of course talking from a moralist and empathical perspective. What I am trying to say is, that this is only an achievement because we accept or ignore the drastic consequences.
- asddubs 5y agoAlso environmental damage that will cost to repair, offloaded onto the government or even future generations
- AussieWog93 5y ago>I am of course talking from a moralist and empathical perspective. Speaking from a business and engineering perspective, I'd be surprised if (even in an ideal world with no environmental externalities or exploited third-world labourers) the cost of the raw resources, shipping and e-waste processing were a significant part of that $1. We're literally talking about something 1/16 the size of a postage stamp that gets stamped into a similarly tiny plastic shell. From my admittedly "peak mount stupid"[1] position as an engineer that uses these things, I'd suspect that the biggest contributors to that $1 figure come from the expert labour required to both R&D the chips as well as run the machines that manufacture them. [1] http://theengineeringmanager.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20111228.gif http://theengineeringmanager.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/...
- dtgriscom 5y agoI share your concerns, but I doubt the materials are a major component of the cost of goods for these.
- throwaway81523 5y agoThis is a good article but it's a few years old, and out of date now. I can't see its date with my current adblock settings. It would be great if someone could find it and put it in the title. There are stupendously powerful $1 microcontrollers now, including the RP2040 (dual core cortex m0+ with 264KB ram on the chip), ESP32-S2 (Espressif core with 400k of ram and wifi), and ESP32-C3 with wifi and RISC-V core and again something like 400k of ram. Jay Carlson also has a series about microcontrollers as cheap as THREE CENTS, i.e. the famous Padauk 3 cent MCU: https://jaycarlson.net/2019/09/06/whats-up-with-these-3-cent-microcontrollers/ https://jaycarlson.net/2019/09/06/whats-up-with-these-3-cent...
- genezeta 5y ago> It would be great if someone could find it and put it in the title. There's no publication date -nor anything marking it as updated at any time afterwards- on the article itself, but first comments are from November 2017 and passing references in the article point to "end of 2017" too.
- coupdejarnac 5y agoThose are the three micros I use for projects/products, too. A while back I bought a few hundred of the Padauk chips with the intent of doing a small manufacturing run of a side project, but I haven't seen them in stock at the normal places for a while. It looks like the lead time for cheap micros in general is about a year.
- nanis 5y ago<script type='application/ld+json' class='yoast-schema-graph ... "datePublished":"2017-07-17T01:31:05-05:00", "dateModified":"2017-11-18T18:07:56-06:00"}]}
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AussieWog93 5y ago>RP2040 Wow, that's an incredibly capable chip for the price!
- rajnathani 5y ago(2017)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- amelius 5y agoThe Chinese company Espressif Systems is doing really well in this area, with its ESP32 series.
- 4gotunameagain 5y agoESPs are great value for money, but they are all kinda hodgepodge and the datasheets / documentation / frameworks are not the best. You get what you pay for I guess :)
- baybal2 5y ago
- hahamrfunnyguy 5y agoThe Texas Instruments MSP430 is another good one to look at. At one point, dev kits were available for under $10. It's a good choice for low-power applications. Comes with a free IDE.
- sgt 5y agoI have a few MSP430's, mostly the really lower end ones and I have recently been wondering if it's really worth it for a hobbyist. The ESP's have low power modes as well, and can run off a tiny battery, which was the primary strength of MSP. Any thoughts? I like the MSP ecosystem and docs, but ESP also shines there.
- lpmay 5y agoIt's up to hobbyists what's worth it to them, but the power consumption of the ESP 8266/32 is not _really_ comparable to the '430. "Deep sleep" mode on the ESP seems to be about 20uA, an MSP430FR5969 can go to a 20nA LPM 4.5 mode (factor of 1000 lower). Harder to compare in a HN comment, but active mode power consumption is also in the MSP's favor for many applications particularly when using the built in hardware accelerators like LEA. Of course the MSP430 doesn't have a WiFi modem or a giant hobbyist community like the ESP, so I'm really not trying to make an argument for which is "better" just trying to add some contrast to the low power features you asked about.
- sgt 5y agoGood point... my perception on power usage was absolutely wrong. MSP's are aging a bit though. At least the ones in my drawer. Is the hw platform being actively developed or has it plateau'd?
- lpmay 5y agoI think the platform is very much still alive and kicking. It is still the only uP platform I am aware of which is available with embedded FRAM which is low power, non volatile, extremely more write durable than flash and rad hard. Again, maybe not top selling features for a hobbyist project but absolutely compelling for certain industrial use cases.
- fouc 5y agoMaybe this is a dumb question, but are any of these cheap microcontrollers able to run Win 98? Or am I misunderstanding what microcontrollers can do?
- ivoras 5y agoThings called "microcontrollers" usually have these properties: * They are actually CPUs, but with very weak feature sets related to desktop & scientific computing * They may or may not have hardware to do any kind of advanced computation, starting with plain old multiplication and division of integers (addition and subtraction of integers is enough for what they do). Yes you read this correctly. The vast majority of 8-bit microcontrollers cannot even do division or even multiplication in hardware. * They run with clocks from kilohertz to low megahertz * They might be 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit, with rarity going up as the bitness goes up. There's a ton of 8-bit microntrollers, and 32-bit are much rarer. 64-bit ones are very very rare, since if you need that processing width, you might as well go for a single-board-computer like a Raspberry Pi. * They are used to DIRECTLY drive other hardware, not in an abstract way. They literally regulate voltages on their pins to make stuff happen with connected hardware. * They might have RAM space ranging from a couple of BYTES (yes, BYTES, see e.g. this one having 32 bytes of RAM: https://www.microchip.com/en-us/product/ATTINY9# https://www.microchip.com/en-us/product/ATTINY9#) to a couple of hundreds of kilobytes. It's very rare to have a microcontroller with a megabyte or more of RAM, because, as before, in that case you might as well just use a full-featured desktop-ish CPU. * They are usually lacking a special bit of hardware called a MMU (Memory Management Unit) which is used by "real" operating systems like Linux and Windows to manage process isolation and many other useful things related to memory. If you need a MMU, again, just use a SBC. So where do we use microcontrollers? Well, what do you think happens in your garage or car keyfob when you click on the buttons? What tells your microwave when to finish and with which power level to nuke your food? What drives your electric toothbrush? Your car's gas valves? Microcontrollers, that's what. They are currently (or have been a few years ago) so cheap we can readily add a microcontroller to every toilet paper leaf, and it would only bring the price of a roll up by a dollar or so. What's stopping us to do just that is the sorry state of current batteries and energy harvesting in general - those technologies simply are not as developed (yet). So, no, you wouldn't describe a chip which can run Windows 98 as a "microcontroller".
- jahirul247 5y ago[flagged]
- tome 5y agoWow, this might be the first spam I have ever seen on HN!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lsllc 5y agoThe mods here are really, really good. I do occasionally see spam & junk comments on HN, mostly early in the (US) morning, but they clean it up quickly. It's one of the reasons I like HN so much, it's very well curated.
- mopsi 5y agoEEVblog had a video series about a 3 cent microcontroller: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3+cent+microcontroller+eevblog https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3+cent+microcon...
- not_the_fda 5y agoI don't think any of these are in stock. Whole industry kept moving to higher cost parts as parts vanished.
- waschl 5y agoSemi-related: Since few months I am digging into tinkering and electronics. It’s really great to learn about modern era solutions which enable cool projects with low entry barrier. However, I happen to learn about new solutions (new sensors, actors, boards, ICs) more randomly than systematically. I tried to google for databases, blogs or news outlets, but couldn’t find anything suited for my consumerish needs. Going through hundreds of pages for similar products on online shops also didn’t yield any good output. Do you guys know any such source? How do you keep yourself updated on interesting new products on the market?
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y agoUsually if you have accounts at the major distributors(Arrow, Digi-Key, Newark, etc.), you'll get occasional updates passed on from some of the manufacturers whose parts they sell. But those are typically not the hobbyist/consumer items you may be looking for. Perhaps sign up for a SparkFun account? I get a lot of OSHW and new module information from them.
- waschl 5y agoThanks,will try!
- iudqnolq 5y ago(total noob) I like looking at the components adadruit builds in-house. For most of them they have open-sourced the schematics, and you can then look up the building blocks on sites like DigiKey.
- amelius 5y agoWhat I want more than $1 microcontrollers is a series of controllers that goes from low price/low performance to higher price/higher performance, but all programmable with the same open-source software stack. I don't want to read datasheets again whenever I need 100MHz more clock speed, or 1mW less power consumption. Because reading datasheets, at some point, feels like filling out tax forms.
- not_the_fda 5y agoThe STM32 line is as close as you will get with this. Its HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) is MIT licensed and is very similar across products. Products in the same family are nearly pin compatible.
- timpattinson 5y agoYeah, STM32 spans the range between the $1 and the STM32F7 at 200Mhz
- monocasa 5y agoUp to the H7 now that goes to 480mhz.
- GeorgeTirebiter 5y ago...which has 2.14 DMIPS/MHz = 1.027 BIPS (more than 1 instruction per nanosecond). Fast enough? (BTW, when I see "mhz" I assume this means "milli-Hertz". Similar when people say they have a 42b structure -- I see this as a 42-bit structure. If I wanted to communicate "42 byte structure" I'd abbreviate as "42B structure". Capitals used judiciously transmit meaning compactly.)
- monocasa 5y agoFWIW, I've seen capitalization issues in datasheets. When they're this ubiquitous, it's better to use it as an opportunity to apply number sense as a sort of FEC for verbal understanding. A 480 millihertz ARM doesn't really make sense (if you were running at those rates, you're in such a niche that it has ISA considerations where ARM isn't a great option anymore). Similarly a 42 bit structure on an ostensibly 8 bit machine doesn't make sense. Yes it'd probably be a better world if everyone was consistent, but blindly assuming that they are doesn't really help anyone.
- drewzero1 5y agoI just came across this site on Friday when looking for a possible replacement for some Digispark (ATTiny85 board) clones at work to connect to some 5v relay modules. I'm not too invested in the Arduino ecosystem at this point and am still looking into other options, haven't finished reading through the whole list yet.
- cf141q5325 5y agoI just used some attiny85 as a software based USB interface with v-usb for interfacing with an atmega328p. I especially love the DIP size, its amazing that i could solder the entire thing learning about capacitors and pull up resistors in the process. The use of multiple processors also allowed for some security by design, having functionalities capsuled with strictly defined directions of communication. I think the ecosystem is really quite impressive with a really low entry hurdle from a teaching perspective. It was possible to get the power consumption of the atmega328p low enough for battery operation even with just Arduino, giving an easy introduction into prescalers and flags. From there you can step deeper into the functionality of avrdude (shoutout to USBASP) and standard AVR makefile projects with for example the micronucleus bootloader.
- drewzero1 5y agoI should've specified that I don't dislike the ATTiny85 or Arduino, far from it. I just needed to find a replacement for a Digispark that I bricked (flashed the wrong bootloader) and wanted to see what other options were out there for a low-spec, low-cost MCU/dev board. I've been using Arduino for years and it's hard to beat the docs and community.
- cf141q5325 5y agoWasnt meant as a value judgement, just hijacked your post sorry :) In fairness it was already downvoted. For a better price point check silicon labs 8 bit variant, otherwise you need to give more data about your scenario edit: That is chip cost. I dont know about devboards
- voakbasda 5y agoI stopped tinkering with electronics despite being a full-time embedded software engineer. I have designed small boards, but I only know enough EE to get myself in trouble. I prefer working with EEs that know their stuff, where our skills can compliment each others’. I no longer work on “hobby” projects; such things become an albatross around my neck. If you deploy a hobby project in your life, you must maintain it. Forever. For that time cost, I want to work on a product that could go into production and pay for its own maintenance. Unfortunately, I cannot stand being around people anymore. I had my entire life savings stolen by an ex, with the government’s help. When I tried to open back up and make new friends after that shit show was over, I was drugged and raped by the first guy that I invited into my house in over two years; he was never even arrested for what he did. And after over 25 years, I stopped playing music, because those “friends” all actively abandoned me when I decided to start carrying a sidearm daily. Collectively, these events destroyed my belief in the just rule of law and the goodness of humanity. Overall, the above factors make me read articles like this with a mixture of excitement and possibility combined with depression and hopelessness. I do not have the resources for a side project, financially or emotionally. I cannot design and launch a side project, even though I am fully capable and that is what I most want to do.
- 0_____0 5y agoSounds like you've had a series of incredibly traumatic experiences. I'm sorry to hear that, and I hope that you're able to find your way into friendships and relationships that allow you to trust again.
- monkmartinez 5y agoWow... Please, please talk to your PCP about these events and feelings. If you want help sorting through this, may I suggest; https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/cognitive-behavioral-cbt https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/cognitive-beha...
- oxplot 5y ago> If you deploy a hobby project in your life, you must maintain it. Forever. Perhaps your definition of hobby is different to mine, but hobby projects are exactly the kind you can abandon in a heartbeat. No long term customers, no guarantees, no obligations. In fact, we hear about countless HW and SW projects being abandoned left and right, right here on HN on regular basis. > For that time cost, I want to work on a product that could go into production and pay for its own maintenance. Hobby and high volume production aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. I wanted to build a custom board to use USB-C power in my projects. Except the cost of a dozen boards assembled was quite high. So I made a thousand or so to subsidize the cost of development and production for myself. The chip I used went out stock (global chip shortage related) but until it did, my "hobby" project paid for itself and actually made me a small profit as well.
- oxplot 5y agoBe careful spending time writing software/firmware for chips that may disappear tomorrow. Cost of the chip itself isn't everything, in fact it's one of the least important things if you're looking at long term cost. This is especially relevant in the current chip shortage climate which has made this point quite salient. Whether it's a hobby project or a high volume production project, you don't want hundreds of hours of your time spent developing for it to go down the drain. In case of a hobby project, it probably means the one or two units you made are all that you're ever going to make. In case of a product you built in high volumes, it means a large gap in sales and lost revenue while you re-do the firmware for a new chip.
- R0b0t1 5y agoThis is a real concern. A lot of these offerings are not useful now because they are not ARM (or, soon, RISC-V). Even with instruction set match, moving between vendors is a huge issue.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoRead this when it came out, it helped me to understand that with modern silicon geometries or process nodes, computers are "free". The largest part of the cost here is the packaging and testing of individual parts.
- dvh 5y agoWhat's the cheapest way to get: 44kHz ADC > FFT > some light computation (e.g. 1000 multiplications) > IFFT > DAC
- sitkack 5y agoCheapest on what axis? Qty 1, including your time, a raspberry pi zero. Qty 1000, not including your time, an FPGA with embedded multipliers.
- coupdejarnac 5y agoProbably a TI C2000 digital signal controller, though I am out of touch with that market segment these days.
- vegadw 5y agoThe author, Jay Carlson, is a really rad guy. I've got a few stereoscopic camera boards of his floating around that I happened to run into and a few emails later I had them up and running!
- deepsquirrelnet 5y agoI've used a lot of micros as a hobbyist, and many on this list. For my time and money, I like the PSOC, even though the author pretty much dismisses them. PSOC always seems to be what I need. I've used it to read CCDs (timing is very strict, and works much better on the SOC than in software). I've made capacitive soil moisture sensors using the capsense. The psoc5 has good options for USB devices. But I don't make things to mass produce, so $1 has no appeal to me. $10 dev board is fine for me, if it does what I need it to do. There's a lot to love about the PSOC, but if you ignore all of the things they do that these other microcontrollers don't do, it might not look great by comparison. Also they have a development environment that is free and easy enough to learn that it doesn't require living in datasheets.