Excellent link! Here you've got the idea of using a ESP8266 or ESP8285 microcontroller (basically a chip, an ASIC -- which contains CPU, enough onboard scratch

Excellent link! Here you've got the idea of using a ESP8266 or ESP8285 microcontroller (basically a chip, an ASIC -- which contains CPU, enough onboard scratch RAM, WiFi circuitry, and GPIO -- to be used for the Ethernet interface, apparently implemented by a separate ASIC and/or attached module/electronic circuit) -- to implment a WiFi Router and/or Access Point... And for very little money no less! If we look at this set of ideas in the broadest most abstract way possible, we have an ASIC (in this case a Microcontroller) -- or set of ASICs (if we count the Ethernet chip as separate) which cost very little money to implement a WiFi Router/Access Point -- on... This leads me to the following question: What is the cheapest, absolute cheapest ASIC that is available today that would implement all of the features necessary to create a WiFi Router/Access Point -- with direct support for (one or possibly several) wired Ethernet ports -- included? And maybe another question: Would that thing be an ASIC, or would it be a board + Ethernet Ports based on that ASIC? (It may cost someone more money to purchase the additional components once you have that ASIC than the cost of purchasing a pre-manufactured board with all of them on it...) Let's suppose that the use case would be: You want to sell hardware devices with basic Router/Access-Point capabilities to customers, but you want to pay as little as you can for the parts... So what combination of those parts -- gets you the cheapest, yet most fully-functional WiFi Router/Access Point? Someone going down this path might need to even take into consideration costs arising from cases and power supplies -- because that's what end-users/consumers would expect as part of their purchase... Anyway, Excellent link!