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by bsder 720 days ago
They probably don't test. Yield is likely high enough that failures are the responsibility of the customer.

Honestly, this is where I'd love RISC-V to be making inroads. It would be really nice to have a super simple processor with a standard architecture and tooling.
3 comments
my123 720 days ago
No, they _are_ tested during manufacturing.

> Honestly, this is where I'd love RISC-V to be making inroads

A 32-bit CPU is way too big for this price point still.

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selcuka 720 days ago
> A 32-bit CPU is way too big for this price point still.

Not sure what you mean by "this price point" but CH32V003 is RISC-V and around 10 cents. It is only 6 times more expensive.

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RantyDave 720 days ago
Yeah, that's a savage bastard too. 48MHz, DMA, UART, I2C, SPI, a sleep mode ... 16KB flash and 2KB ram. Certainly enough to run something with a UI, probably enough to implement a basic software defined radio, could probably do some neat tricks when buried inside a USB cable.

I mean, clearly we're at the "splash the cash" end of the Chinese processor market here but at least you get good bang for buck.

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nick7376182 720 days ago
With small chips like this do you think they would test at a high sampling level?
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duskwuff 720 days ago
> It would be really nice to have a super simple processor with a standard architecture and tooling.

Pragmatically speaking, that architecture already exists -- it's the 8051. (This part is a PIC clone, but 8051 is also extremely common.)

RISC-V has promise for larger microcontrollers, but really tiny ones like these (48 bytes RAM, 1KB ROM) are better off with an 8-bit architecture.

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kjs3 720 days ago
Ya...8051s are literally everywhere, and there's a vast ecosystem of code and programmer talent to draw on.
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dragontamer 719 days ago
Yes but... modern 8051 has grossly different peripherals / drivers than the original.

Most of your code / effort will be in getting these peripherals to work. A ton of microcontroller programming is a simple if(voltage>0.5V) then {setup peripherals to do Y}.

In fact, voltage > 0.5V is a peripheral (aka: the Analog Comparator + DAC loopback) on most uCs today. So in practice its:

"If (analog comparator) then {do Y}".

Except "if analog comparator" is itself an interrupt that you put into the interrupt table, so that the processor can sleep for minimum power usage. So really its all just configuration of interrupt table handlers, configuration of various peripherals, and then a massive amounts of sleep.

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zer00eyz 720 days ago
The first link in the article is to a .10 RISCV part. https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Nyquest-Technology-NY8A051H-80...

The RPI2040 is under a buck in bulk (the chip).

The Pine Ox64, The Milk-V duo and the RPI packages are all interesting products (at a sub 10 bucks each).

The MILK-V duo S is very appealing (form factor wise). If they ever mange to get POE/HDMI in version out it will be a killer product (even more so if they get all that into a sub 20 buck price point).

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