So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. -- Rick C. - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
4-bit MCU Availability - Again
Started by ●June 11, 2022
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:12:10 AM UTC-7, Ricky wrote:> So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > > http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > > They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. >This one at least have an email you can try: sales@tritan.com.tw https://www.tritan.com.tw/en/Products/2/1152/4-bit-OTP-MCU
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 2:23:07 PM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote:> On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:12:10 AM UTC-7, Ricky wrote: > > So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > > > > http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > > > > They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. > > > This one at least have an email you can try: > > sa...@tritan.com.tw > > https://www.tritan.com.tw/en/Products/2/1152/4-bit-OTP-MCUNo way to look at datasheets. They require you to login, but no way to register to get a login. So no idea what their products are like. I'm not interested enough to email them if I can't even view a data sheet. Insane! I recall companies (mostly Asian) who provide data sheets, where copying text is locked out! Why would anyone want to prevent me from copying details of their data sheet? It makes it very inconvenient for me to include their data in my board documentation and does NOTHING to prevent their competition from gaining access to it. The world is weird. Thanks for the link. At least I know of two companies who make these things. What I'd really like to know is how many they sell each year. I'm thinking it's a LOT since so many products use them. Some have suggested many of those products are using 8 bit MCUs. There's one Chinese company that is available on LCSC with an 8-bit MCU at about $0.03 each, qty 100. That's insane! In addition to the cost, there's the power issue. Remote controls need to be as low power as possible. -- Rick C. + Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging + Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
lørdag den 11. juni 2022 kl. 20.52.52 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:> On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 2:23:07 PM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote: > > On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:12:10 AM UTC-7, Ricky wrote: > > > So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > > > > > > http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > > > > > > They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. > > > > > This one at least have an email you can try: > > > > sa...@tritan.com.tw > > > > https://www.tritan.com.tw/en/Products/2/1152/4-bit-OTP-MCU > No way to look at datasheets. They require you to login, but no way to register to get a login. So no idea what their products are like. I'm not interested enough to email them if I can't even view a data sheet. Insane! > > I recall companies (mostly Asian) who provide data sheets, where copying text is locked out! Why would anyone want to prevent me from copying details of their data sheet? It makes it very inconvenient for me to include their data in my board documentation and does NOTHING to prevent their competition from gaining access to it. > > The world is weird. > > Thanks for the link. At least I know of two companies who make these things. What I'd really like to know is how many they sell each year. I'm thinking it's a LOT since so many products use them. Some have suggested many of those products are using 8 bit MCUs. There's one Chinese company that is available on LCSC with an 8-bit MCU at about $0.03 each, qty 100. That's insane! > > In addition to the cost, there's the power issue. Remote controls need to be as low power as possible.istm that power isn't _that_ critical in a remote control, it only needs to run when you push a button and then the major power consumption is the transmitter
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 3:14:05 PM UTC-4, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:> lørdag den 11. juni 2022 kl. 20.52.52 UTC+2 skrev Ricky: > > On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 2:23:07 PM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote: > > > On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:12:10 AM UTC-7, Ricky wrote: > > > > So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > > > > > > > > http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > > > > > > > > They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. > > > > > > > This one at least have an email you can try: > > > > > > sa...@tritan.com.tw > > > > > > https://www.tritan.com.tw/en/Products/2/1152/4-bit-OTP-MCU > > No way to look at datasheets. They require you to login, but no way to register to get a login. So no idea what their products are like. I'm not interested enough to email them if I can't even view a data sheet. Insane! > > > > I recall companies (mostly Asian) who provide data sheets, where copying text is locked out! Why would anyone want to prevent me from copying details of their data sheet? It makes it very inconvenient for me to include their data in my board documentation and does NOTHING to prevent their competition from gaining access to it. > > > > The world is weird. > > > > Thanks for the link. At least I know of two companies who make these things. What I'd really like to know is how many they sell each year. I'm thinking it's a LOT since so many products use them. Some have suggested many of those products are using 8 bit MCUs. There's one Chinese company that is available on LCSC with an 8-bit MCU at about $0.03 each, qty 100. That's insane! > > > > In addition to the cost, there's the power issue. Remote controls need to be as low power as possible. > istm that power isn't _that_ critical in a remote control, it only needs to run when you push a button and > then the major power consumption is the transmitter"Isn't *that* critical"? No, nothing about a remote control is *critical*. The lower the power, the better until you match the self current of the battery. Given the battery lasts as long as 10 years on the shelf, I've never had a remote battery last that long. Also, the lower the current drain, the smaller the battery can be. They tend to be AAA now. The MCU has to run all the time to "see" that you pressed a button. It doesn't have to run 100% of the time to do that, but it's a far cry from only when you press the button. It's not like the MCU is just turned off and you press a button to turn on the remote, then press the button you want to send. I suppose they could diode OR the buttons to the MCU power connection, so the MCU is off until a button is pressed. Do they do that? I guess they want to save the cost of the diodes, so instead they use a 4-bit MCU that draws very, very little current when running. -- Rick C. -- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging -- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 4:09:08 PM UTC-7, Ricky wrote:> On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 3:14:05 PM UTC-4, lang...@fonz.dk wrote: > > lørdag den 11. juni 2022 kl. 20.52.52 UTC+2 skrev Ricky: > > > On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 2:23:07 PM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote: > > > > On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:12:10 AM UTC-7, Ricky wrote: > > > > > So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > > > > > > > > > > http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > > > > > > > > > > They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. > > > > > > > > > This one at least have an email you can try: > > > > > > > > sa...@tritan.com.tw > > > > > > > > https://www.tritan.com.tw/en/Products/2/1152/4-bit-OTP-MCU > > > No way to look at datasheets. They require you to login, but no way to register to get a login. So no idea what their products are like. I'm not interested enough to email them if I can't even view a data sheet. Insane! > > > > > > I recall companies (mostly Asian) who provide data sheets, where copying text is locked out! Why would anyone want to prevent me from copying details of their data sheet? It makes it very inconvenient for me to include their data in my board documentation and does NOTHING to prevent their competition from gaining access to it. > > > > > > The world is weird. > > > > > > Thanks for the link. At least I know of two companies who make these things. What I'd really like to know is how many they sell each year. I'm thinking it's a LOT since so many products use them. Some have suggested many of those products are using 8 bit MCUs. There's one Chinese company that is available on LCSC with an 8-bit MCU at about $0.03 each, qty 100. That's insane! > > > > > > In addition to the cost, there's the power issue. Remote controls need to be as low power as possible. > > istm that power isn't _that_ critical in a remote control, it only needs to run when you push a button and > > then the major power consumption is the transmitter > "Isn't *that* critical"? No, nothing about a remote control is *critical*. The lower the power, the better until you match the self current of the battery. Given the battery lasts as long as 10 years on the shelf, I've never had a remote battery last that long. Also, the lower the current drain, the smaller the battery can be. They tend to be AAA now. > > The MCU has to run all the time to "see" that you pressed a button. It doesn't have to run 100% of the time to do that, but it's a far cry from only when you press the button. It's not like the MCU is just turned off and you press a button to turn on the remote, then press the button you want to send. > I suppose they could diode OR the buttons to the MCU power connection, so the MCU is off until a button is pressed. Do they do that? I guess they want to save the cost of the diodes, so instead they use a 4-bit MCU that draws very, very little current when running.MCU draws very little current when sleeping, then wake up on button interrupt.
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
On Sat, 11 Jun 2022 11:12:05 -0700 (PDT), Ricky <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:>So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > >http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > >They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective.Were you able to download information on these ? The product table has a download column on the right side but they appear to be dead, even looking at the source there is nothing. boB
Reply by ●June 11, 20222022-06-11
On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 8:21:59 PM UTC-4, boB wrote:> On Sat, 11 Jun 2022 11:12:05 -0700 (PDT), Ricky > <gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. > > > >http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx > > > >They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. > Were you able to download information on these ? The product table > has a download column on the right side but they appear to be dead, > even looking at the source there is nothing.No, I got nowhere. Tritan was no better requiring a login while not allowing you to sign up -- Rick C. -+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging -+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●June 12, 20222022-06-12
In article <e71be537-a2eb-4eed-8e13-83c9e9f7b9c3n@googlegroups.com>, Ricky <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:>The MCU has to run all the time to "see" that you pressed a button. It >doesn't have to run 100% of the time to do that, but it's a far cry from >only when you press the button. It's not like the MCU is just turned >off and you press a button to turn on the remote, then press the button >you want to send. >I suppose they could diode OR the buttons to the MCU power connection, >so the MCU is off until a button is pressed. Do they do that? I guess >they want to save the cost of the diodes, so instead they use a 4-bit >MCU that draws very, very little current when running.Some deep-low-power MCUs these days have specialized logic for this purpose. There's a static (non-clocked) pin-state-change detection circuit for one or more of the pins, which will operate even if the core of the MCU is clock-stopped. In a typical implementation, this circuit can trigger an interrupt which brings the MCU out of a clock-stopped idle state (with some amount of latency as the clock oscillator starts up again). This gets the power usage down to "static CMOS" levels of leakage. Fancier chips will have multiple power wells on the die, with the ability to turn off power to non-essential peripherals and even to the core itself. In those designs, only the pin-change circuitry may actually be powered up when the MCU is standing by - the core may be powered down.
Reply by ●June 12, 20222022-06-12
On 11/06/2022 19:52, Ricky wrote:> On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 2:23:07 PM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote: >> On Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:12:10 AM UTC-7, Ricky wrote: >>> So anyone have knowledge of truly low cost/low power MCU devices? I found this company. >>> >>> http://upt-ic.com/en/index.aspx >>> >>> They have a line of 4-bit MCUs. Can't find a way to get prices unless I call them. I expect that would not be very effective. >>> >> This one at least have an email you can try: >> >> sa...@tritan.com.tw >> >> https://www.tritan.com.tw/en/Products/2/1152/4-bit-OTP-MCU > > No way to look at datasheets. They require you to login, but no way to register to get a login. So no idea what their products are like. I'm not interested enough to email them if I can't even view a data sheet. Insane! > > I recall companies (mostly Asian) who provide data sheets, where copying text is locked out! Why would anyone want to prevent me from copying details of their data sheet? It makes it very inconvenient for me to include their data in my board documentation and does NOTHING to prevent their competition from gaining access to it. > > The world is weird. > > Thanks for the link. At least I know of two companies who make these things. What I'd really like to know is how many they sell each year. I'm thinking it's a LOT since so many products use them. Some have suggested many of those products are using 8 bit MCUs. There's one Chinese company that is available on LCSC with an 8-bit MCU at about $0.03 each, qty 100. That's insane! > > In addition to the cost, there's the power issue. Remote controls need to be as low power as possible.That is far from clear. Once you go below 1uA standing current the battery life might even be slightly enhanced by a tiny current flow. Most of them can be configured to be at least an order of magnitude less around 0.1uA in sleep mode and have a wake up on button pressed. -- Regards, Martin Brown
