ch32fun

cnlohr is in his own league, this guy is bordering on genius. Dissatisfied with the state of the vendor SDK for CH32V003 microcontrollers (ultra-cheap RISC-V MCUs), he created his own [1], which is a pleasure to use. He also has a header-only RISC-V emulator that runs Linux (and Doom!) [2], and hacked an ESP32 to emit valid LORA frames with clever use of aliasing [3]. [1] https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003fun [2] https://github.com/cnlohr/mini-rv32ima [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIdHBDSQHyw

See also the CH32V003 [0] (more expensive variants also available), a neat, cheap and standalone RISC-V with plenty of modern & flexible peripherals, good package options, single wire debug and an open toolchain [1] for ~20c per. Mitxela has a great article on them [2] and I totally agree they have a lot of the same joy & simplicity of the ATTiny - but with the added bonus of lots of interesting DMA controller misuse! The peripherals have a very STM feel (in a good way) which perhaps isn't surprising given WCH's history. 0: https://www.wch-ic.com/products/CH32V003.html 1: https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003fun 2: https://mitxela.com/projects/badge

I agree with your sentiment, but I am more optimistic about the future of RISC-V. It considerably lowered the barrier of entry for vendors, and so there are more of them! Higher competition usually means that users win: they get lower prices, open-source toolchains and firmware, etc. For one, I am very excited about the tiny CH32V003 ([1], [2]), a RISC-V 48 MHz microcontroller that costs ~$0.10 and can be programmed with completely open-source tools, see [3] and [4]. I am reasonably sure the higher end of the spectrum of RISC-V chips will also get better in terms of user-friendliness. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Wrv7nW-S8 2. http://www.wch-ic.com/products/CH32V003.html 3. https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003fun 4. https://github.com/aappleby/PicoRVD

Commodity RISCV chips. Some of these have just entered mass production, such as the CH32V003 (10 cents each in 1k quantities). https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003fun Fully open source stack! Grab the below eval board and peck around: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005269690018.html Also see here for awesome writeup on the BL602 chip using the Nuttx RTOS: https://lupyuen.github.io/articles/nuttx