PIT.NINJA
  • Communities
  • Create Post
  • Create Community
  • heart
    Support Lemmy
  • search
    Search
  • Login
  • Sign Up
Tony Bark to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish • 9 months ago

World's smallest microcontroller looks like I could easily accidentally inhale it but packs a genuine 32-bit Arm CPU

www.pcgamer.com

external-link
message-square
62
fedilink
  • cross-posted to:
  • technology@lemmy.ml
1
external-link

World's smallest microcontroller looks like I could easily accidentally inhale it but packs a genuine 32-bit Arm CPU

www.pcgamer.com

Tony Bark to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish • 9 months ago
message-square
62
fedilink
  • cross-posted to:
  • technology@lemmy.ml
A sneeze-inducing 1.38 mm² and small enough to make a Raspberry Pi look like a bus.
alert-triangle
You must log in or register to comment.
  • @notgold@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    Just nuts that my 386 was to big to take on my pushy as a kid and now the same thing would get lost in my nose hairs

    • Meowing Thing
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Maybe you just didn’t have long enough nose hair as a kid

  • @YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    This article was written by someone who only knows buzz words. They said it’s “not just the silicone, but the entire microcontroller” what do they think processors have other than silicone?

    • @rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but there is no silicone at all in microprocessors but silicon.

  • @xorollo@leminal.space
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    I thought this headline was a Clinton joke.

  • @EffortlessEffluvium@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    Looks like a micro Lego. Hell, it is a micro Lego.

  • @breadsmasher@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    The future: we have replaced the microplastic in our blood with microcontrollers

    • @mybuttnolie@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      and it has started already! didn’t you hear about the covid vaccine!!!

      • @kmartburrito@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        You guys are so out of the loop! RFK Jr has known about this and has been speaking about it since at least 2001 when he had that brain worm removed.

    • @P1nkman@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      I live in Denmark, work in a location with about 120 people. Two of them believe this, and there is a third one who’s a massive Trump fan. I try to not interact with them.

      • @neidu3@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        I’m sure they have interesting things to say about the covid vaccines.

        • @Flagstaff@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          about the covid vaccines.

          There, all fixed now.

    • Meowing Thing
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      32-bit processor, the powerhouse of the cell

    • dch82
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      And each of them is powerful enough to run Doom

      • @taladar@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        So you are saying once it gets into your bloodstream you are doomed?

        • @WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          in every meaning of the word

      • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        You had me at “run Doom”.

        • @geomela@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          So right at the end?

    • DaveyRocket
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      And the microcontrollers to control the microplastics.

      • @Slovene@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        And the microcontrollers will be charged by mitochondria.

        • KingJalopy
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          The powerhouse of the cell??

      • Tony BarkOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        Would you like gray goo with that?

        • @HiTekRedNek@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          Yes please. Can’t be much worse than what we have now.

    • @SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      We already have micromachines in our cells

      And in our mitochondria

      • @ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        Mitochondria, the PowerPChouse of the cell.

    • @peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      At what point do we become Borg

    • Blastboom Strice
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Nanomachines, son

  • Inf_V
    link
    fedilink
    0•9 months ago

    How would you ever actually practically use this

    • @Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      You could use it as the logic board for a micro drone, something the size of a dime perhaps. Or other applications where weight or space are extremely limited. Another example might be a medical implant of some sort, this is small enough that it could be a part of a device that is meant to be placed inside an artery, or an eyeball, or an ear canal.

    • @Gsus4@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      fly-sized spy drone

    • @A_A@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      see comment from @Lumberjacked (it is complicated !)

    • @MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Wrist watch.

    • @Lumberjacked@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      I make specialty vehicle electronics. My immediate thought was very small and cheap sensors. Similar to tire pressure monitoring but wired with CAN or something similar.

    • Beacon
      link
      fedilink
      0•9 months ago

      In any use where size and or weight is important. For example wearables and flying drones

    • @floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      In small things. Probably not very feasible for hobby projects unless you can get it soldered on when the PCB is built.

      • @MartianSands@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        BGA, like in the photo, isn’t the only option. There are options only slightly larger with hand-solderable packages (if you’re good at soldering)

        • @Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          This is already technically hand solderable with the right equipment.

    • @catloaf@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Same way you would in any other microcontroller application, but smaller, so the whole device can be smaller.

      Get small enough and we can really have those bloodstream robots.

    • @474D@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Maybe an actual useful smart ring?

  • Lovable Sidekick
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

  • @Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    This is making the Republicans so nervous.

    • @sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      What would you be referring to?

      • skulblaka
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        Like a solid half of all antivaxxers are anti vax because they’re convinced that Bill Gates is putting microchips in your bloodstream to control your brain waves.

    • @Albbi@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Not in the forehead! Not in the forehead!

  • @A_A@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    Package options : 20-pin, 16-pin or 8-pin … but looking at Texas instrument website i did not find the pinout …

    • @Lumberjacked@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      https://www.ti.com/lit/ug/slau908b/slau908b.pdf?ts=1742093653289&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.ti.com%252Ftool%252FLP-MSPM0C1104%253Fhqs%253Depd-msp-procbr-mspm0_small-pr-evm-ew5-wwe

      • @A_A@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        You found it 👍 This large document include pinout for the 20 pins package and it is somewhat complicated since each pin may have many uses … it would be hard to imagine (for me) what would the 8 pins package pinout would look like !

        • @MartianSands@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0•9 months ago

          I couldn’t find the actual pinout for the 8 pin package, but the block diagrams make me think they’re power, ground, and 6 general purpose pins which can all be GPIO. Other functions, like ADC, SPI and I2C (all of which it has) will be secondary or tertiary functions on those same pins, selected in software.

          So the actual answer you’re looking for is basically that all of the pins are everything, and the pinout is almost entirely software defined

  • @Buffalox@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    In broad terms, that seems to put it about on par with an Intel 386 chip from 1985

    At 24 MHz, it’s actually about 4-6 times faster than a full fledged 33 MHz i80386DX with 10 times as many transistors back in the day.
    It’s absolutely insane that i386 remained the standard with its inferior high latency design.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

    exhibiting BASIC language performance ten times faster than a newly introduced 80386-based computer

    That was an 8MHz Arm system, and it was commonly recognized as being clearly faster than a 33MHz i80386DX!
    In fact the 8036 was so inefficient at 33MHz it couldn’t even beat the speed of a 16 MHz 80286 on 16 bit code!!
    Mips, Alpha, Motorola, Sparc and finally Arm were all better, but they weren’t backed by IBM, and the availability of clones made the PC relatively cheap. But basically everything else was better than Intel.

    Unfortunately Arm also lacked a math co-processor, so for tasks that were heavy on FP calculations, an i386 with co-processor was superior.
    Also Arm was unable to sell them cheap enough to capture at least a niche market. (Apart from education in UK)
    And for the hobbyist an Amiga was way cheaper, and had powerful graphics and sound chips.

    • FauxPseudo
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Thank you. This kind of information was exactly what I wanted in the comments.

      As a person who started on a 286 this seems blazing fast. Just wish it had ports for power, HDMI and USB

      • @ripcord@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        HDMI

        I don’t believe it has enough RAM for any real video, among other things.

    • Lovable Sidekick
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      Now you got me remembering my 2MHz “big board” Z80 computer I put together in the 80s from a kit. First computer I ever owned. On first power-up nothing seemed to happen, then I turned up the monitor brightness and a choir of angels sang.

      • Dojan
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        I love this.

  • @Changer098@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    32-bit just won’t die!

    • Tony BarkOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      I was just thinking that. XD

  • @Flagstaff@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    Nanobots of 90’s sci-fi, here we finally come!

    • @Dayroom7485@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      I want those fuckers powering little submarines that fight cancer cells right now - but realistically speaking, these microcontrollers would need to be at least one order two order of magnitude smaller for that, no?

      • @WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        I can guarantee you they wouldn’t (solely) be used for pur benefit

      • @Flagstaff@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•9 months ago

        Oh, absolutely. I just mean that we appear to be headed in that direction.

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮
        link
        fedilink
        English
        0•
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        Just reprogram viruses (like the microbe) instead. It’s easier.

  • @neidu3@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    0•9 months ago

    “It does in fact run Doom”, he said before he snorted a line of his new favorite drug - a dark grey line of Gigaflops.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮
      link
      fedilink
      English
      0•9 months ago

      We don’t know the effects of inhaling them (yet)

      Pretty sure I’ve seen what happens before.

Technology@lemmy.world

!technology@lemmy.world

Subscribe from Remote Instance

Create a post
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


  • @L4s@lemmy.world
  • @autotldr@lemmings.world
  • @PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks
  • @wikibot@lemmy.world
  • 103 users / day
  • 1.27K users / week
  • 3.51K users / month
  • 10.8K users / 6 months
  • 77.6K subscribers
  • 12.3K Posts
  • 374K Comments
  • Modlog
  • mods:
  • @L3s@lemmy.world
  • enu
  • Technopagan
  • L4sBot
  • L3s
  • @L4s@hackingne.ws
  • UI: unknown version
  • BE: 0.19.3
  • Modlog
  • Instances
  • Docs
  • Code
  • join-lemmy.org