Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

ti.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 106 posts

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#91

Post by throwaway81523 »

emctech wrote: post #36

This line of micros has been out for almost 2 years now but they only just took the 1.38mm^2 package out of pre-production. I started a design last year of a tiny earring with ~102 addressable LEDs on it, a microphone, a bunch of supporting circuitry and this micro. https://i.ibb.co/JWh57LLw/IMG-20260408-183807502-HDR.jpg Unfortunately by the time I was ready to order the boards I found the tiny package was unobtaniu…

Earrings with microphones, another thing for privacy nerds to lose sleep over. Cool board though!

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#93

Post by teleforce »

emctech wrote: post #36

This line of micros has been out for almost 2 years now but they only just took the 1.38mm^2 package out of pre-production. I started a design last year of a tiny earring with ~102 addressable LEDs on it, a microphone, a bunch of supporting circuitry and this micro. https://i.ibb.co/JWh57LLw/IMG-20260408-183807502-HDR.jpg Unfortunately by the time I was ready to order the boards I found the tiny package was unobtaniu…

Not trying to be pedantic, but it was released back in March last year 2025 [1].

It will be much better if the OP link to the announcement news rather than straight to the datasheet for better context.

[1] TI introduces the world's smallest MCU, enabling innovation in the tiniest of applications:

https://www.ti.com/about-ti/newsroom/news-releases/2025/2025...

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#94

Post by drzaiusx11 »

arnejenssen wrote: post #17

A silly question (from a non-HW guy). Why are digital bathroom scales so coarse? Some have a weight resolution of +/- 500 grams. Would a better microcontroller make a weight faster or more presise? I guess this TI micro controller is overkill for a bathroom scale.

Analog to digital converters (components generally built-in to uCs and SoCs but you can make them using simple resistor ladders) have common resolution ranging usually from 8bit to 24bit in most consumer hardware.

Resolution of +/- 500g just means there's not enough "steps" values in your ADCs provided bit depth: for example the 10bits on an attiny85 gives you 1024 discreet values you can map to weight values etc.

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#95

Post by dcrazy »

daveguy wrote: post #83
supertroop wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bare metal refers to not using an rtos. I know that sounds weird but it is an industry convention. It does not refer to the language.

That's exactly what I said. Rust compiles to binary opcodes. Assembly is not an rtos, and does not require one. ASM isn't a standard "language". It's literally a fancy display of opcodes and registers that the CPU reads to execute operations. C does the exact same thing , ie compile to opcodes. You can convert binary back and forth from ASM to opcodes with a lookup table. At its core, ASM is just a convenient way to…

Whether the code compiles to assembly is orthogonal to whether the program can function without runtime support.

Compiled Rust code that relies on syscalls will not function on a “bare metal” microcontroller.

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#96

Post by daveguy »

dcrazy wrote: post #95
daveguy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what I said. Rust compiles to binary opcodes. Assembly is not an rtos, and does not require one. ASM isn't a standard "language". It's literally a fancy display of opcodes and registers that the CPU reads to execute operations. C does the exact same thing , ie compile to opcodes. You can convert binary back and forth from ASM to opcodes with a lookup table. At its core, ASM is just a convenient way to…

Whether the code compiles to assembly is orthogonal to whether the program can function without runtime support. Compiled Rust code that relies on syscalls will not function on a “bare metal” microcontroller.

Oh, thank you. I didn't know that. Sorry about my ignorance. Really thought that it defaulted to a direct machine code without library assistance.

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#97

Post by grogenaut »

nneonneo wrote: post #20
LoganDark wrote: post #6

Could you put a few thousand of these on a PCB and have a super duper tiny compute cluster?

I'm reminded of TIS-100, a game where you program a cluster of tiny, parallel CPUs using a custom assembly language. It's painful to get basic stuff done, but you can do some amazing things with some effort.

I stopped playing TIS100 after about 40 minutes becuase: a) the editors, come on man b) I realized I could just learn FPGA instead and it would be more useful. so I didn't do either

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#98

Post by lights0123 »

daveguy wrote: post #96
dcrazy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether the code compiles to assembly is orthogonal to whether the program can function without runtime support. Compiled Rust code that relies on syscalls will not function on a “bare metal” microcontroller.

Oh, thank you. I didn't know that. Sorry about my ignorance. Really thought that it defaulted to a direct machine code without library assistance.

Rust does not rely on syscalls or libraries on embedded targets, which is what the #![no_std] marker at the top of the project indicates. On some platforms, like ESP32, Rust can make calls into the RTOS and don't need that marker, but other embedded targets don't provide access to the std crate and you need to interact with peripherals from Rust or by interfacing with C or assembly.

Rust's only requirement is that memcpy, memmove, memset, memcmp, bcmp, and strlen are available, and it can provide them if needed: https://github.com/rust-lang/compiler-builtins

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#99

Post by emctech »

teleforce wrote: post #93
emctech wrote: post #36

This line of micros has been out for almost 2 years now but they only just took the 1.38mm^2 package out of pre-production. I started a design last year of a tiny earring with ~102 addressable LEDs on it, a microphone, a bunch of supporting circuitry and this micro. https://i.ibb.co/JWh57LLw/IMG-20260408-183807502-HDR.jpg Unfortunately by the time I was ready to order the boards I found the tiny package was unobtaniu…

Not trying to be pedantic, but it was released back in March last year 2025 [1]. It will be much better if the OP link to the announcement news rather than straight to the datasheet for better context. [1] TI introduces the world's smallest MCU, enabling innovation in the tiniest of applications: https://www.ti.com/about-ti/newsroom/news-releases/2025/2025...

You are right. I am just a little salty that it took them so long to have the smallest package available.

Re: 1.38 Millimeter Microcontroller

#100

Post by NichoPaolucci »

wongarsu wrote: post #14
self_awareness wrote: post #2

It seems awesome, but I'm having a problem with figuring out how can a "normal" person use it. How would YOU use it, reader of this comment?

Anything where a reasonable person would say "this doesn't even need a microcontroller, just do it analog". In terms of projects that I would be inclined to try that are uniquely enabled by this, my mind goes towards wearables. It's small enough to be hidden in seams of fabric. If you wanted to have a bunch of temperature sensors all over your body, or have a complex arrangement of dimmable LEDs woven into clothing,…

I understand they put "normal" person in quotes, probably to reference the HN crowd or other computer enthusiasts - but it is very funny to think of my Uncle Rick (No smartphone, no computer knowledge), a "normal" person, coming to the family outing with microcontrollers rigged up to temperature sensors all over his body.
Post reply on HN