What are you doing with Padauk chips you bought? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: bentyler
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2022, 09:25:19 pm
content: I know lots of people got excited about low cost chips and how that would somehow democratize embedded development. The effort to reverse engineer the tools was impressive.However people like me actually want to make stuff with them, and it's a PITA sourcing them. I'm willing to bet most people gave up almost immediately after programming OTP chips got old. The open source tools brought out the best from the community, but there is no compatible ICE, the chips don't have a UART for serial comms, and having a full C compiler is kind of silly for a chip this limited. Let me know if I'm wrong, but I will be shocked if someone out there has used the open source tools, burning through a bunch of chips while debugging, for more than one or two trivial designs. I don't mean to disparage anyone, but I'm just annoyed that people bought up a bunch of chips they'll never use from the distributor that's easiest to deal with.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2022, 07:03:57 am
content: QuoteI don’t think that we anticipated the the difficulties in “sourcing” them. They seemed to be available in bulk from lcsc, and we didn’t think that that would change.We should have known better. It ought to take more than brief availability from a relatively unknown manufacturer to inspire any confidence in a single-source part. :-(

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2022, 06:37:37 pm
content: Quote from: bentyler on August 22, 2022, 09:25:19 pmNot commenting on the rest, but this part? Who in their right mind ever thought that they would democratize embedded developement?The whole Arduino environment did democratize embedded development. The RP2040 is also doing that great. ($1 chip this powerful and easy to use, really!)But how anyone could ever think that a couple-cents MCU, this crippled, supported by a language that is not even C, and rather poorly documented to the point of requiring reverse engineering, would "democratize" anything is beyond me. Anyway.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2022, 10:38:08 pm
content: Where is the option "Didn't buy because I knew they'd be a huge pain in the ass to program and debug".

author: chickenHeadKnob
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2022, 01:54:48 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on August 23, 2022, 10:38:08 pmYes, my feeling on them. For me, a more interesting question is what is the next lowest cost microcontroller which has reprogram-able flash and a decent tool-chain.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2022, 02:28:16 am
content: At least pre-covid there were AVR and PIC flash micros for <$1 each. I'm not building anything high volume enough to care about going any cheaper than that. If I'd wanted to build a million of something then maybe those Padauks would make sense.

author: woofy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2022, 08:39:34 am
content: They are not a chip I would ever use. Just too limited in every way from technology to support.

author: rooppoorali
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2022, 03:44:26 pm
content: I am very sorry. Never heard of these microcontrollers before

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2022, 07:47:45 pm
content: Quote from: rooppoorali on September 04, 2022, 03:44:26 pmNeither have I.But to the original question: as they supposedly cost 3 cents, dump them in the waste bin.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2022, 07:59:31 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 23, 2022, 06:37:37 pmWell going even as far as people building their own programmers and reverse engineering basic tools, it really throws me back to the PIC/AVR programmers running from a serial or parallel port with sketchy circuits. And even that started to die out 15+ years ago! I'm glad that in my student time, I could get a PICKIT for 30-40$ and get my feet wet with official manufacturer tools. And if you start now, you don't need to spend more than 10$ to get boards that talk USB, WiFi, and run 100+MHz at 1-2$ per chip. It's crazy if you think about it.I think the enthusiasm was more about the mere existence of a 4ct chip that can be reprogrammed , and the potential to replace basic glue logic (like 555s or HC series logic) for very high volume applications.Perhaps this is why the LCSC supply dried up. It's probably one of the few channels these parts were easily facing the western market, and if some full-time engineer spent some time to put a small amount of logic into a product with multi-10k's of volume per year, then it's very easy to saturate that supply bridge (in terms of depletion).

author: martinribelotta
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2022, 11:26:29 pm
content: I have worked with padaux MCUs using them as a true random number generators.The client needed a source of true random numbers and did not want to pay for the real generators (also, shortage)I put two padaux chips running with their internal RC oscillator and using each other as entropy source... strangely it worked very well and the tests with the NIST suite gave excellent results...For 0.06 USD it was a great little project

author: PCB.Wiz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2022, 06:38:00 am
content: I noticed LCSC have these parts in stockhttps://lcsc.com/search?q=Nyquesthttps://www.nyquest.com.tw/en/product/HomeAppliances/NY8_Series/downloadThey are in a similar slot, to Padauk parts, 14b opcodes and 8 level stack, and OTP with HV Vpp in SO8 and SO14 and SO16 - from Taiwan, so the English support looks good.They also look to have a "C compiler " and some MTP ones are coming.Some have 12b ADC and can support crystals - which is rare for bottom-feeder MCUs, so they seem well suited to simple peripheral slaves and timer tasks, around a larger FLASH MCU.They are similar price to the venerable HC4060, and cheaper than more niche parts like HC5555 or HC6323 and cheaper than Oscillator/dividers like Nisshinbo NJU63xx series

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2022, 07:53:07 am
content: I never understood the craze about the Padauk controllers.Why would it even matter if a uC is 3ct or 30ct, for production runs of less than 10.000 or so.Both prices are negligible once you've put it on a PCB, added a power supply and put it in some enclosure.OTP is a real nuisance during developing too, and that alone has dismissed them for me.Both lack of a uart, and a very small family are other show stoppers.It's just not worth learning the tools for that (for me at least).I also wonder what other small uC's cost, once you go in the millions of parts and negotiate directly with the manufacturer. Even my toothbrush has an MPS430 in it, which is grossly overkil, but apparently it's cheap enough for the toothbrush manufacturer.But I do find the question interesting. I'd also be curious about people actually using these things in an application where it is a good choice. But both the "price don't matter much for <10k units and the limited hardware would make it difficult to find such an application.I'm guessing this mostly leaves the people who do it "just because they can". Just like the (quite a lot) people into retro computing and still designing Z80 computers.

author: woofy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2022, 09:12:30 am
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on September 05, 2022, 07:53:07 amI recently went on a nostalgia trip and designed a Z80 computer. Still have no intention of using Padauk chips though.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2022, 11:20:49 am
content: It's just the challenge, Nobody uses that for real products, have much better alternatives who do more and simpler, for example, the CH anything line that is also cheap and uses conventional western tools a good example is CH552 who has USB and do a lot more than any Padauk, with less than double the price, But still extremely cheap, and if you consider the cost of development, for sure is a much better alternative for problems that you may thing on padauk, For the more complex problems is another history, but the reference was padauk,

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2022, 12:05:09 am
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on September 05, 2022, 07:53:07 amIt really doesn't. 10k is a very small production run in some products though, if you're making say 5M of something then a few pennies really adds up. That is assuming you can get the required large quantity of parts though.

author: true
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2022, 03:26:40 am
content: I've made a couple devices with runs >100 units that have used these chips.For people saying they're limited - sure. they are. For my uses, they've done exactly what I've needed and with fairly low power consumption.Still have thousands of units on hand.Haven't used the open source tools. I wrote assembly and even the weird Mini-C stuff and used the vendor ICE to debug.If you don't know what you want to do, or can't deal with the limitations, then these aren't for you. There are ~$0.50 >100MHz RISC-V MCUs out there now. The cheap $0.25 range 8-bitters are slowly coming back in stock, like CH55x series.I used them as they were interesting to me, and I like to cost optimize even when I don't need to. OTP and no chip markings was actually a positive factor in using the parts.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2022, 07:44:22 am
content: QuoteYou're kidding, right?They're not particularly more "crippled" than the 8bit PICs.The only thing requiring reverse engineering was the hardware development tools. Which is about the same as any number of other last-generation microcontrollers. It's only relatively recently that standardized and/or open source programming tools have become common.And their (free!) Tiny-C isn't so awful, either. It's closer to being a "high level assembler" than many "languages", but ... that's sort-of nice, coming from a vendor.I didn't get any in the first round, because I clearly didn't want a full reel, nor did I want to shell out $$$ for the HW tools. Now, the supply chain and apparent obsolescence issues are more of a concern that the technical issues.But if anyone is seriously ready to throw theirs out, I'll take them!(I perceive that somehow the Chinese market is less ... sensitive to some types of risk ... than western markets. Here, we'd say stuff like "We're not going to build a chip with a generations-old architecture that is really only good for blinking LEDs in toys; that's stupid!" And THEY say "blinking LEDs are cool. We'll make that chip and sell it to everyone who wants to make a $0.50 blinking toy! And if no one buys it, we'll stop production and make something else." I dunno how it works; I should probably actually read Bunny's book that I bought a while ago.)

author: KaeTo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2022, 12:54:29 pm
content: I am sad to read, that so many have a bad opinion of this chip. I build a few of this reverve engeneered open souce programmers and the PFS154 became my new go to uC. I had so many projects in the past where I was hesitating to use an uC that costs 1-2€ just for a simple task (where the uC is overpowered for). Now I use the padauks nearly anywhere. For my chistmas lighting I needed 20 individual PWM outputs. I used 5 PFS154 with an serial data input. I build many lamps with capacative touch sernsors, consisting of an PFS154 (PMC150 also possible) an an 1MOhm resistor. I also build capacitive moist sensor with this uC.I just love it. There are so many small tasks, where normaly a uC would be to much, but now I have an easy programmable 5ct solution.

author: tim_
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2022, 09:09:06 pm
content: I don't get all the hate. There is far more to the Padauk MCUs than them being "cheap" and "OTP".There are zillions of PIC clones out there, but if you take a close look at the Padauk ISA, it is actually a very carefully crafted expansions of the original concept. In addition there are variants that offer simultaneous multithreading - a concept not used on many other devices.The real problem is the availability, obviously. The interesting MTP types are almost impossible to buy at LCSC now, and if something is available it's a new and uncommon type. Also, the even more interesting variants with 2 FPPA have never even been offered.There are plenty of other sub $0.10 cent MCUs like Nyquest, FMD, SHC etc. But all of them are just bland OTP PIC clones.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2022, 06:45:52 am
content: Quote from: KaeTo on September 25, 2022, 12:54:29 pmDon't be. Opinions are like a-holes, everyone's got one.If it works for you in your application, and gets the job done, that is *all that matters*.Who cares if it's not ARM based, or some other ISA (except the fanboys). It just needs to do what it needs to do, and it could be half as powerful as a 555 timer if that is all that was needed...

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2022, 10:02:23 am
content: Quote from: chickenHeadKnob on August 24, 2022, 01:54:48 amThere was this tweet recently:https://twitter.com/Patrick_RISCV/status/158038443099648410148 MHz 32 bit RISC-V with 16k flash, 2k SRAM for "under $0.10.Supposed to be on LCSC, but the only thing I see so far is a $13 eval board.https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Microcontroller-Units-MCUs-MPUs-SOCs_WCH-Jiangsu-Qin-Heng-CH32V003F4P6-EVT-R0_C5187532.html

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2022, 05:41:03 pm
content: Just look at prices for the lower-end Nuvoton MCUs (Cortex-M0) on LCSC.

author: bidrohini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2022, 07:43:37 am
content: Never bought any.

author: RazaHosyain
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 02, 2022, 09:24:44 am
content: ok

author: KaeTo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2023, 06:25:31 pm
content: Just finished another little padauk projects. It uses the PMS150C. It's a battery protection circuit (li ion) which cuts of the battery if voltage is under 3V. Futhermore a led indicates this state (blinking every 6s) and shows the actual state if a device is connected (blinking 1x: <3,6V, 2x: <4,0V, 3x: >4,0V). Only 5 components are required (PMS150C, n-ch Mosfet, p-ch Mosfet, schottky diode, LED). I think with this a price under the standard protections boards could be achived.

author: c64
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2023, 04:47:30 am
content: Quote from: PCB.Wiz on September 05, 2022, 06:38:00 amAre where any cheap programmers for those?

author: danymogh
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2023, 07:31:33 pm
content: Quote from: c64 on February 03, 2023, 04:47:30 amI've been eyeing those "Nyquest" parts as well. they are even cheaper than padauk now. the problem is the programmer as you mentioned. I think i saw them selling off at around 100$ at aliexpresshttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004560890408.htmlwhich is a lot. however looking at the datasheet and the modified SDCC compiler, I have a strong hunch that these are other FMD like MCUs with PIC-like architecture, but can't confirm because you'll have to look at the final assembly.the problem with FMD and PIC alike MCU is that they didn't fully clone the PIC architecture so no compatible compiler exists for them other than the one the company is providing. HOWEVER! , I've seen origin-gd (which is just a rebrand of FMD) that uses Hi-Tech compiler for PIC with modifications to the final assembly! they later got rid of the Hi-Tech compiler and rebranded it as some kind of self-made gnu compiler packed with a modified UPX packer to hide its presence! I guess because of copyright reasons? and FMD stopped shipping its IDE with the Hi-Tech compiler at some point.anyway long story short, I think it's possible to reverse the programmer (it's much simpler than padauk) and make it as cheap as possible.

author: c64
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2023, 11:45:16 pm
content: Quote from: danymogh on February 04, 2023, 07:31:33 pmYes this sucks. Price is OK if you already use them. But if you just want to buy few of these chips to test, it's hard to justify $100 for programmer and $1 for chips

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2023, 12:32:35 am
content: Quote from: c64 on February 04, 2023, 11:45:16 pmThat's where the $5 CH32V003 kit is much better value. You get 5 bare chips, a USB programmer/debugger, a dev board (with 6th chip on it).https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804709476544.htmlYou can buy another 50 chips for $5:https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804850399956.html- modern 32 bit RISC ISA, better code size than PIC, executing fewer instructions to do the same task. Supported by upstream gcc and llvm, not customised gcc or limited pseudo-C- flash, not OTP- 2k RAM not 32 bytes- 16k flash (5000-6000 instructions), not 1000 instructions. Probably equivalent to 12k-15k PIC instructions.See Dave's recent videoNote: both items are out of stock right now, as they have been multiple times before. They were in stock a few days ago, and no doubt will be again soon. WCH do have a custom compiler, but it's not necessary, even if you want to use their non-standard features, with some simple use of attributes and inline asm.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2023, 10:21:39 am
content: Not to mention that probably those RISC-V chips will still be very usable by the same GCC mainline tools (from your favorite linux package manager) in 10 years time. The Padauk and whatnot needs completely custom toolchain stuff, that on a bad day, only work with an old version of Windows (huray for rolling Windows 10/11 releases now huh), so you'd rather archive in a VM..Hardware programmers are a fairly standard serial or SWD programmer it seems. Is there also debugging? That would make it even greater. The OTP aspect of the Padauk chips put them off for me. Sure ct-level MCU is great, but not if it requires soldering to fix a firmware mishap that sucks (which, let's face it: at some point; the firmware works, while at some point, the hardware used to work).The only disappointment for RISC-V MCU is the power consumption. 0.4 - 2.7mA sleep you got to be kidding me. But to be honest not much worse than some other PICs that were marketed with XLP branding, or perhaps, all eastern "clones" that primarily focus on function compatibility over electrical compatibility (in particular bad analog behaviour)

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2023, 11:35:11 am
content: Quote from: hans on February 05, 2023, 10:21:39 amThere is "SWD" debugging, yes. It's not the same as ARMs, you need WCH's customised OpenOCD, but the source code for their version is published (but not upstreamed). You kind of have to ask WCH for it and they easily give it to you, but (multiple by the looks) people have put it on github. The license certainly allows that. Someone needs to organise that, but yeah...https://github.com/kprasadvnsi/riscv-openocd-wchQuoteMaybe some of WCH's more pricey MCUs have better sleep. I haven't looked.I know the GigaDevice GD32VF103 that has been shipping since 2019 (I bought a dozen Longan Nano boards for $4.90 each back then, and some bare chips from tme.eu for $1.98 each in October 2020) has "sleep", "deep sleep", "standby" modes:sleep: 108 MHz clock: 10 mA peripherals off, 25 mA peripherals on; 2 MHz clock: 1.0 mA peripherals on, 0.7 mA peripherals off. Wake time 4.5 µs.deep-sleep: 460 µA, wake time 6.0 µsstandby: 22 µA, wake time 118.8 msI believe those are reasonable compared to STM MCUs, except the wake from standby (and from power on reset is the same) is long because the program is copied from in-package (2nd die) flash into 0 wait-state SRAM for execution.So I dunno. The sleep figures you quote for the WCH are pretty comparable. I don't know what you expect. I've never really had to deal with really conserving power like that.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2023, 08:21:28 pm
content: Ultra low power modes are not the forte of low-cost chinese MCUs in general, with few exceptions. And RISC-V ones tend to be worse for now, probably due to market reasons (vendors are probably still looking to adjust their positioning) and maturity of the RISC-V cores they use.But again, not limited to RISC-V MCUs. And even the RP2040 suffers from that.What we take now for granted, standby modes with current draws in the µA range or lower, is actually a pretty new trend. A few years back, it was still niche and you'd need to select specific vendors / product lines for that.

author: tim_
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2023, 11:14:11 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on February 05, 2023, 08:21:28 pmA bit ironic to post this in the Padauk thread. The Padauk MCUs are actually quite capable low power devices, see here:https://cpldcpu.wordpress.com/2021/02/07/ultra-low-power-led-flasher/Most of the low-cost chinese ARM / RISC-V are manufactured in smaller and lower voltage CMOS which are inherently more leaky. Allowing for a very low current standby mode would probably require adding low leakage transistors for power gating. This does usually increase wafer prices - hence we end up with fairly mediocre MCUs. I would also assume that they do not spend too much time on optimizing the analog aspectes of their MCUs in general, as this requires a different skillset and is quite time consuming.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2023, 11:38:16 am
content: I think we can all agree a 32 bit CPU is overkill if you only want to flash a LED.Which reminds me -- I have to change the battery in my "Pulse" CD box set again.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2023, 07:02:20 pm
content: PMC251might be suitable for HID buttons and rotary encoders, using SPI (chain) as a shift register for accessing their state, plus a separate latch signal for sampling all in parallel.Essentially, PMC251 can be made to run two "cores", interleaved, on every other system clock cycle; each "core" has their own program counter, stack pointer, accumulator, and flags. One "core" would monitor the encoder state(s) and latch signal, and the other "core" handles the SPI shift register. (The latch transition simply preloads the SPI shift register with the encoder state.) Running at 8 MHz, this should be fast enough so that no transitions are lost and debouncing can be done in software.At €0.17 or less apiece (with each capable of handling two encoders or seven buttons), it'd make a nice way to make human interface buttons and encoders for a number of gadgets, if one designs the data stream sensibly. Changes since last latch might be most useful (with buttons reporting both press and release events so that a button press is not lost even if it happened entirely between two consecutive reads), because it'd allow encoder acceleration profiles also, and the per-encoder state wouldn't need too many bits.