The image below shows the sizes of the ATtiny85, ATtiny84, ATtiny2313, and ATmega328 respectively (Sorry about the poor quality – I’ve never been great at Photoshop, I prefer working with vector images). I2C and other synchronous communication should be fine as long as they obey the maximum and minimum durations. 8 MHz is fast enough to do serial but issues may arise since the internal oscillator is only 10% accurate. It’s also important to note that they can all run up to 20MHz when using an external oscillator. They also all have an 8MHz internal oscillator (some chips default to 1MHz but can be changed by setting a fuse). Most importantly, they all operate at 1.8 – 5.5 volts. While these chips have many differences, they also have a few similarities.
Surface mount components drastically change the difference in size between the largest and smallest of these chips and make it much more compelling to go for the larger chip. I didn’t compare surface mount versions of these chips since I’m not at that skill level yet. To quote a favorite TV character: Hello and/or Duh! I also assumed that since the tinys were much smaller, they would be slower, have less inputs, and be much cheaper. When I started this comparision all I knew was that the ATtiny series was tinier than the ATmega series. So instead, this post will be a comparison of some of the popular Atmel chips: the ATmega328 used in the Arduino Uno, the ATmega2560 used in the Arduino Mega, the ATtiny84, ATtiny85, and ATtiny2313. As I was writing it, I started comparing chips and realized the distinctions weren’t as cut and dry as I thought.
ARDUINO AS 16 BIT 42 PIN EEPROM PROGRAMMER HOW TO
This post was originally going to be about how to program and ATtiny with the arduino IDE (don’t worry, I’ll get to this soon). I’ve got a few projects I’m working on thinking about that just don’t make sense with an arduino, both for size and cost reasons.