[HN Gopher] LilyGO T-HC32 board with world's smallest Arm MCU (H...
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       LilyGO T-HC32 board with world's smallest Arm MCU (HC32L110B6)
       available for $9
        
       Author : em3rgent0rdr
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2022-05-20 15:34 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cnx-software.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnx-software.com)
        
       | dylan604 wrote:
       | A board called T-HC32 would be better priced at $4.20
        
       | phendrenad2 wrote:
       | But can it run Crysis?
        
       | throwaway81523 wrote:
       | I saw that on CNX but why is it interesting? The board isn't
       | unusually small compared with something like a Xiao or QtPy, It
       | is 2.2cm * 3 cm, almost 2x the size of a Xiao, which is cheaper
       | and much more powerful.
        
         | thedingwing wrote:
         | This is notable not because of the board itself, but because of
         | the incredibly small footprint of the MCU on it. This chip is
         | ~40% smaller than the already tiny Kinetis KL02.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | zokier wrote:
           | Although I must wonder if there are many applications where
           | .5mm difference in package size is really meaningful
        
         | nicoburns wrote:
         | The idea is that you only use the board for development, and
         | use the 1.6mm x 1.45mm (note: mm not cm) chip on a tiny custom
         | board in production.
        
           | vbezhenar wrote:
           | What are examples of tiny boards where MCU size would matter?
           | Usually boards are dominated by other components anyway.
        
             | zokier wrote:
             | One example are chips embedded in connectors, like for
             | example what you see here
             | https://www.ifixit.com/News/8448/apple-audio-adapter-
             | teardow...
             | 
             | Although those are probably always some more specialized
             | ASICs instead of some general purpose MCUs
        
           | throwaway81523 wrote:
           | I guess that angle is interesting, but for most of us here,
           | the board doesn't help that much in that case. The chip docs
           | are all in Chinese, and it is a 4x4 CSP package with specific
           | pin assignments so you have to route some very tiny PCB
           | traces. I wonder what PCB fabs can handle that without
           | charging a fortune. I believe there are some almost-as-small
           | parts where you have more routing flexibility and a
           | reasonable GCC port.
        
       | valdiorn wrote:
       | What would you do with a tiny, tiny MCU?
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-23 23:02 UTC)