There’s a new chip on the block, named the CH32V003. I’ll admit the name is a bit of a mouthful, I’ve idly been referring to it as “the chirty two” or “the double-oh three” but don’t let the unassuming name fool you, this chip is grand.
It’s a self-contained microcontroller with a 48MHz RISC-V core that costs about $0.15 in single quantities. It may seem odd to dwell on the low price, but throughout the chip shortage I witnessed many of my favourite parts quintuple in price, or become unavailable entirely, so having a new microcontroller that’s cheap and available is a big deal.
Since the part is so cheap, I ordered about fifty of them in various packages just to have a play around.
One of the most appealing things about the chip is that CNLohr has created an open source toolchain for it: ch32v003fun. I didn’t even bother looking at the official tools, the blurb alone for ch32v003fun had me convinced. It’s still a little rough around the edges in places, but it’s everything I want from a project like this – it’s lean, efficient, and understandable.
To get a feel for the new part I did a few different projects, this badge is one of them.
Dave5 
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