00:01STM32F767 vs Atmega8, which wins prototyping?
00:05Ok, quick question, you need a microcontroller for a prototype, and you're stuck between an
00:10old-school Atmega8 and something like the STM32F767. I went through the listings,
00:16compared prices, and found the best deals. Here's my honest take.
00:21First up, the bare STM32F767 chips, the IGT6, V86, I86, ZE6 variants, around 15 bucks each.
00:31This is the STM32F767, so you get a 216 MHz Cortex-M7 core with a double-precision FPU,
00:39a megabyte of flash, and 192 kilobytes of RAM. My Atmega8 has 8 kilobytes of flash and zero float
00:46math. $15 for that jump is almost unfair. Now the full board, this STM32F767i GT6 core board
00:56runs about $200. Sounds steep, but it's a complete core board with the M7 wired up,
01:02headers, and compatibility across the STM32F7, F103, and F4 ecosystem. You're paying for the
01:09whole dev platform so you're not fighting solder joints on day one. Third, the embedded ARM learning
01:15kit, roughly $169. This one's built for actually learning, structured lessons, example code,
01:22board ready to go. 4.9 stars, almost 4,000 sold. If the STM32F767 feels intimidating next to the
01:31friendly Atmega8, this is the one that walks you through it step by step. Fourth, the F767
01:38Challenger V1 and V2 boards, around $150. This is the one I keep coming back to.
01:45Big color LCD, camera interface, Ethernet, USB, header space everywhere, the Challenger makes you
01:51ask wait, can I do that on this? And the answer is usually yes. Note, product 1 is a bare
01:57chip,
01:57no board, no debugger, no headers. $15.32 is per unit, add shipping and a programmer.
02:05Atmega8 baseline here is the $4 DIP28 part.
