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Interesting company
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.w4004-16634479443.12.22113245XUQCwS&id=36803356892
scroll through that and they more or less say they authorized by Microchip -
I think he was referring to the picture showing they are (or were - its from 2007) a Microchip Design Partner. There are a lot of those. Its fairly easy to become one.Interesting company
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.w4004-16634479443.12.22113245XUQCwS&id=36803356892
scroll through that and they more or less say they authorized by Microchip
Where? I only saw they carry genuine pic, not saying they are authorized dealer. -
There's GD (GigaDevice). They're not that small (e.g. Keil supports some), but being embedded engineer in Europe for few years, I've never ever heard of this...
These guys basically did a ST clone (ST's are apparently very popular in China).
They also license ARM, they also license USB ipcore. Peripherals are the same.
The best (funniest) thing is that they use same memory map, so most code will run without modifying it. One can also use ST libraries
Why would one use them? I guess quantity price. Commercial purposes
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I also read about them at the olimex blog (https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/chinese-clones-attack-stm32-microcontrollers/).
I don't know if this can be real, but a Cortex M3 is just 0.32$: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.17.176a27ebJhOfTt&id=566046633333&ns=1&abbucket=2#detail
http://www.gigadevice.com/products/microcontrollers/gd32/arm-cortex-m3/value-line/gd32f130-series/gd32f130c8t6/
If they are really so close to the STM-ones I bet a ST-Link would do the programming job? -
They are real - here is a series of articles comparing STM32F103 vs GD32F103
https://smdprutser.nl/blog/stm32f103-vs-gd32f103/
https://smdprutser.nl/blog/stm32f103-vs-gd32f103-round-1-solderability/
https://smdprutser.nl/blog/stm32f103-vs-gd32f103-round-2-blink-a-led/
https://smdprutser.nl/blog/stm32f103-vs-gd32f103-round-3-uart/
It is using regular ARM SWD and JTAG, so STLink (or any other SWD-capable) dongle should work with it. It is not a 100% clone, though - there are some differences and gotchas. -
Yup. For development you can go for JLink as well (fast memory readout for debug).
ST loader works perfectly even for the option bytes 
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anyone here buy their chips in a large run? if so how did they pan out?
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Actually GigaDevice are not that small. They're a part of consortium that have bought SSI, beating Cypress' bid.
Their STM clones actually have a separate flash die in the package and there is extra SRAM to cache the flash so that they can run at high speed. -
Maybe STM should copy them back.
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Maybe STM should copy them back.
First GD should make a proper datasheet. The information density is a joke. One has to refer to ST's one, which is so funny! -
Maybe STM should copy them back.
First GD should make a proper datasheet. The information density is a joke. One has to refer to ST's one, which is so funny!
It actually would make sense that they were a former factory for ST that ST pulled out of hence the near identical clones and not much of their own doc work.. happens all the time on scale.. best factory wins and all the others get scraps, rossmann just did a recent video on ftc vs ice and mentions it as well. -
First GD should make a proper datasheet. The information density is a joke. One has to refer to ST's one, which is so funny!
The datasheet cost more efford to develop then the chip i am sure.
Those Chinese are very clever, only not so hard workers, more of the lazy kind.It actually would make sense that they were a former factory for ST that ST pulled out of hence the near identical clones and not much of their own doc work.. happens all the time on scale.. best factory wins and all the others get scraps, rossmann just did a recent video on ftc vs ice and mentions it as well.
There you have it, they already have 1 quarter of the market to start with, and are taking over many more if we keep buying. -
Use the Chinese documentation. Can't read Chinese? Then you're not really their target market.Maybe STM should copy them back.
First GD should make a proper datasheet. The information density is a joke. One has to refer to ST's one, which is so funny! -
soFPG: any updates on programming your PMS150C-U06 MCU?
I just ordered dev tools for the Holtek HT66F/HT68F and HT48R. I'm looking to use an HT48R003 in a personal project, but buying parts on lcsc got me looking at others. The Padauk PMS150C looks most interesting to me.
I'm probably going to stick with Holtek's 8 bit parts for a few reasons: I'm familiar with PIC10/12/16, and the architecture is similar. I like the PICs, but it always bugged me that the free compiler is crippled and they charge to much for the full version; I've programmed them in assembler in protest, and for the fun of it. It's so cool that Holtek just gives you the IDE + compiler. A few products at my work use Holtek MCUs, so understanding them might come in handy that way.
It is a lot of fun to program these little barebones parts where it's not too much work to fully understand everything that they can possibly do. There's something satisfying about that. -
Wow. 990 bytes of (one time programmable!) program memory. A few bytes of RAM. A single 8 bit accumulator. Control flow is only compare-and-skip-next-instruction-if-equal or increment/decrement-and-skip-if-zero or test-bit-and-skip-if-hi/lo.
Cruder than even 6502 or older PIC or 8051 or 2650 or SC/MP.
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Aside from the OTP vs. flash, this is on par with a PIC12F508 / 509. This architecture is cheap to implement and produce, but surprisingly useful.
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Interesting company
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.w4004-16634479443.12.22113245XUQCwS&id=36803356892
scroll through that and they more or less say they authorized by Microchip
They have a 'selection of authentic smoke'
https://yueyd.taobao.com/?spm=2013.1.1000126.d21.6ed04dafJEF0NU
scroll down to the ICD and evaluation boards
All this 4-bit stuff looks really interesting. if you have some success I might follow yous after I use up my AVRs. Remember that Hackaday 1kb contest? Gather up all the guys on here that are interested and run one for 4-bit stuff. -
For what it's worth, I did a lot of research into low-cost MCUs from the Chinese marketplace for my $1 Microcontroller Review. I considered a lot of parts discussed in this thread. Before getting into the crazy 4-bit MCUs out there, anglophones may want to stick to the offerings from Holtek, Nuvoton, and STC. All three have good English documentation for their parts and wide availability on Taobao/AliExpress/etc.
Also, all three parts have decent development experiences (Nuvoton and STC have Keil; Holtek has HT-IDE3000), and their programming tools are low cost (STC can actually be programmed using a 3.3V / 5V TTL USB UART adapter).
Before ordering hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, dip your toes in the water with one of these three offerings and you'll find out if it's something worth pursuing further.
In my case, while I initially thought I'd be going back to these vendors more, I haven't found a killer application for any of these chips — and considering you can get fully-functional SiLabs EFM8s for $0.32 each in single quantities, it's tough to justify the added development pain.
Sure, that particular EFM8 only has 2 kB of flash, but it has a much nicer peripheral selection than a lot of ultra-cheap MCUs: 18 I/O with 15 channels of 12-bit ADC, plus 4 timers, two comparators, SPI, I2C, UART, and PWM modules.
Food for thought! Keep us updated on your adventures! -
A long time ago Dave did a teardown of a toothbrush on his blog, and it had some weird 4 bit uC.
When the battery of my (braun) toothbrush was worn out recently I opened it and it had an MSP430 in it, and so do other (braun) tooth brushes, but the model is not always the same.
This suggests these are very cheap if you negotiate properly with the manufacturer and buy enough of them.
In some of the installation guides on https://toothbrushbattery.com you can also read the type number on a number of toothbrushes.
But I do not care much for the lowest cost uC. I'm more interested in decent peripherals and availability of free high quality development tools such as GCC. -
A long time ago Dave did a teardown of a toothbrush on his blog, and it had some weird 4 bit uC.
The 4 bit MCUs go in the higher voltage Braun brushes. The MSP430s they use are the 0.9V parts. which work in brushes with a single NiMH cell. The lower battery cost more than pays for the use of a specialist MCU.
When the battery of my (braun) toothbrush was worn out recently I opened it and it had an MSP430 in it, and so do other (braun) tooth brushes, but the model is not always the same.
This suggests these are very cheap if you negotiate properly with the manufacturer and buy enough of them.
In some of the installation guides on https://toothbrushbattery.com you can also read the type number on a number of toothbrushes.
But I do not care much for the lowest cost uC. I'm more interested in decent peripherals and availability of free high quality development tools such as GCC. -
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Any progress with the Padauk controller?
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On the other hand, Padauks controller are available. The PMS150C-U06 is the cheapest microcontroller I found (https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PMS150C-U06_C168658.html), it is only 3 cents!
Keep in mind the very cheapest MCUs are quite brain-dead, and worse, usually OTP.
ie if you use high volumes, they can make sense, but for general MCU use, in modest volumes, you are better to get FLASH parts.
You can get FLASH 8051 cored parts, with ADC/UART/SPI etc, for the 20c~30c region, and there is a resurgence of 8051 in Asia, so variants are now very common. -
the stm32f030f4p6 (probably a clone) can be had for $0.3 from taobao... it is cortex-m0 @ 48MHz and has 4KB ram and 16KB flash.