Jennic now offers a reduced-complexity network stack called Jen-Net, which has about a third of the memory overhead of Zigbee. Their microcontrollers and modules have both stacks in ROM, and applications can run either. This is something I need to study carefully for the aiosphere, which Jennic looks good for anyway. Here is a cursory overview of Zigbee dev kits, which favors Jennic’s offering. Reading their support forums, though, sugests that all will not be smooth sailing if I select this platform for development. Next stop, Ember.

I suppose that, instead of creating an Ethernet-Zigbee gateway device and a bunch of Zigbee devices, one could also just make WiFi devices, if the chipsets and firmware support infrastructures are developed out enough yet so the costs compare favorably. But a quick survey suggests that WiFi still isn’t there yet. Lantronix makes the WiPort, an embeddable module which is sort of easy to use, and Mouser distributes it for $120/1, $100/10. DataHunter makes a G device called the Radion, which is $80/1 Nanoradio, and similar vendors make chipsets and modules which come way down in volume, but these are hard to get, hard to find dat for, and I believe don’t provide the TCP/IP stack etc. So, from my perspective, that of a glorified hobbyist, WiFi is still far too complex and expensive.

I am always searching for smaller, cheaper microcontrollers! Especially with UART.

NEC makes some compelling devices because of package size (2×2mm), but their feature set is very limited. No UART, no comparator.

Microchip doesn’t put the debug engine on their smaller, lower-cost micros. If you don’t mind debugging on a different micro, their F687, in 4×4mm QFN, is an attractive target for some designs, about a buck fifty in small qtys. Of course, they also make some very tiny, very low cost devices (10Fxx), but they are just too awful to program.

Zilog makes some 5×6QFN parts with UART, and they have a free dev environment. Hardware multiply! Lots of memory. About a buck and a half in small qtys.

NXP also make some small footprint and low cost (about a buck) micros, but only 1k mem max. Still, if you can make that work, the price is a powerful argument. High speed architecture, nice UART features, 3×3QFN.

Silicon Labs makes some useful micros for designs requiring lots of power and small footprints. Hardware multiplier, big memory options, fast clock, 3×3QFN, starting at about a buck seventy-five in small qtys. Can migrate to an OTP part for higher volumes, which cuts the price about in half.

Atmel makes one small, low-cost micro with UART, but it is too memory-constrained for many of my designs. Still, cheap.

As the creator of the MSP430 user group, I feel compelled to mention TI’s offerings. 6×6QFN, just over two bucks in small qtys. Buckets of memory, extremely low power, hardware multiplier.

And honorable mention goes to Freescale’s RS08 family, very few peripherals, not C programmable, but less than fifty cents even in small qtys.

Let’s make tiny smart objects!

I may as well jump on the bandwagon and recommend the code editor everyone else in the world does. UltraEdit is cool. I especially like the bundle of UEStudio (which adds a version control system, among other nice features) and UltraCompare (which finds differences between similar files). Has a compiler plugin for the PIC C compiler from CCS. Much more flexible than MPLAB. Great for HTML, PHP etc. too.