I am searching for the right microcontroller

I am looking for the right microcontroller to use in my project.

Requirements:

  1. I need the smallest possible size.
  2. I need 8 digital pins (I will be using these for 4 lines of serial communication)
  3. I need 3 analog or digital pins (I will be using these for 3 LEDs)

Do you talk about controller size or board size?

It means that you need a controller with 4 UART rather than just 8 digital pins

Microcontrollers like the ATmega328P. I need the smallest possible microcontroller size.

With SoftwareSerial, 8 digital pins can be used for making 4 UART.

Hello grayrawlins

Take a view here to get some information.

"smallest" it's not specific. What size do you need in millimetres?

Is 7x7mm atmega328 too big for you? it meets your requirements

This has no meaning.

You need to say something like this:

My enclosure is 5CM by 5CM by 2CM the controller must fit in this size, the battery is external.

I am asking a general question. The size I need is the smallest size that fits my requirements.

Yes, ATmega 328 is pretty small, but is there a microcontroller smaller that fits my requirements?

raspberry pico QFN56 ?
I never chose controllers by size. Do you think a difference of 1-2mm matters for homemade device?

It seems to me that you are asking about "small controllers" without having any expierence to work with them. Will you be able to solder at least QFP32 atmega328?

@LarryD your response has no meaning.

I am asking, what is the smallest microchip that has 8 digital pins and 3 analog pins?

I am not asking, what microchip will fit an XYZ enclosure? There could be many chips that do that but I need the smallest.

What are the 4 thing's you are communicating with via Serial?

Potentially, but if you let us know what you are communicating with, then it could save you a lot of hassle, as software serial can indeed be very limiting :slight_smile:

Ok, how about an ATTINY3216 in a VQFN package at 4mm x 4mm?

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check the ATmega 4809 in TQFP (7x7x1 mm)

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Perfect, thank you!

It would be better if you asked
Yesterday you could not connect two arduinos with the simplest sketch, but today you are sure that you can ensure the operation of 4 ports at once?

Well, you could be falling into a common beginner trap of interconnecting multiple close-range Arduino’s together, due to inexperience in multitasking. This can make things extremely overcomplicated, especially when dealing with half-duplex software serial (can’t send in 2 directions simultaneously).

OP.

No idea which one will suite your needs. Also no idea which one will be programmable with the Arduino IDE but that wasn't a requirement.

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The MCU ATTINY3216 has two Hardware UART Ports (Fig-1). How are you going to have other two UART Ports?


Figure-1:

This ^^^^
Small size with four hardware serial ports, more flash memory and ram than an atmega328.

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