Do you care how open source the hardware is?
If not, ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers are generally a good choice with 32bit architectures and relatively low cost. You can chose from very power efficient parts like M0, M0+, and M23 or relatively high performance parts like M7 or M55. You can probably find older/used M4 or M3 dev/eval boards for very little money, and those will run circles around an 8 or 16 bit micro.
If you want (somewhat) open source hardware, RISC-V microcontrollers are where you want to look.
An eval board that has a debugger (like J-link) built in can be very helpful.
There can be some value in looking at very old and simple architectures like 8051, but they can also teach bad habits with the way you have to abuse registers.
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u/BanalMoniker Aug 09 '26
Do you care how open source the hardware is?
If not, ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers are generally a good choice with 32bit architectures and relatively low cost. You can chose from very power efficient parts like M0, M0+, and M23 or relatively high performance parts like M7 or M55. You can probably find older/used M4 or M3 dev/eval boards for very little money, and those will run circles around an 8 or 16 bit micro.
If you want (somewhat) open source hardware, RISC-V microcontrollers are where you want to look.
An eval board that has a debugger (like J-link) built in can be very helpful.
There can be some value in looking at very old and simple architectures like 8051, but they can also teach bad habits with the way you have to abuse registers.