A tiny RISC-V MCU board selling for $3

Re:A tiny RISC-V MCU board selling for $3 by kragen on Thursday January 02, 2020 @01:54PM (#21938434)

I'd been wondering if the GD32F107 was a clone of the STM32F107! Thank you for confirming that! But surely you can't honestly think that ST microcontrollers are a reasonable alternative for most electronics manufacturers? As far as I can tell, ST doesn't even offer datasheets in Chinese!

I think RISC-V software support will probably take shape pretty quickly, in the next $smallinteger years.

In terms of the ethics of cloning products from other companies, such as Linux, Chrome, Intel’s 64-bit chips, and Google Search: do you want the future to be dominated by engineers who create new things, or by owners of government-granted monopolies like copyrights, patents, and RF spectrum? Bram Cohen and Richard Stallman, or the RIAA and Verizon?

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Re:A tiny RISC-V MCU board selling for $3 by makomk on Thursday January 02, 2020 @04:42PM (#21940187)

ST's microcontrollers were really popular in Chinese-designed electronics before GigaDevices cloned them, and the STM32F103 - which is the one they initially cloned - was especially so. Its popularity in China is almost certainly why they decided to clone it in the first place.

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Re:A tiny RISC-V MCU board selling for $3 by kragen on Friday January 03, 2020 @12:14PM (#21947907)

Sure, when you're desperate for decent parts, it makes sense to use overseas suppliers with long lead times and customer service and datasheets all in English. And the STM32 line is really great. But if you can instead use a domestic supplier who speaks Chinese and can get you parts in a few hours instead of a month, why wouldn't you?

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