There’s a bit of a contest going on when it comes to which is the cheapest microcontroller, yet most of the really cheap ones have one big trade-off in that they have one-time programmable (OTP) memory, generally requiring the use of an (expensive) device emulator during development. This raises the question of what the cheapest reprogrammable MCU is, which [Jay Carlson] postulates is found in the Puya PY32 ARM Cortex-M0+ based series.

Although [Jay] has previously mentioned that these cheap OTP (like the 3-cent Padauk PMS150) MCUs make sense for large volume production) it’s also easy to see that for small volumes and for hobbyists it’s much easier and cheaper to just reflash the firmware in the same cheap MCU rather than using an expensive in-circuit emulator. This is where the Puya PY32 comes into play, with parts ranging from 8 cents a pop (basic PY32F002A) to $0.74 for the more full-featured models on LCSC, and packages ranging from a miniscule DFN, to LQFP and hand soldering friendly SOIC. Continue reading “Puya PY32: The Cheapest Flash Microcontroller You Can Buy Is Actually An ARM Cortex-M0+” →