Honestly, this is where I'd love RISC-V to be making inroads. It would be really nice to have a super simple processor with a standard architecture and tooling.
> Honestly, this is where I'd love RISC-V to be making inroads
A 32-bit CPU is way too big for this price point still.
Not sure what you mean by "this price point" but CH32V003 is RISC-V and around 10 cents. It is only 6 times more expensive.
I mean, clearly we're at the "splash the cash" end of the Chinese processor market here but at least you get good bang for buck.
Pragmatically speaking, that architecture already exists -- it's the 8051. (This part is a PIC clone, but 8051 is also extremely common.)
RISC-V has promise for larger microcontrollers, but really tiny ones like these (48 bytes RAM, 1KB ROM) are better off with an 8-bit architecture.
Most of your code / effort will be in getting these peripherals to work. A ton of microcontroller programming is a simple if(voltage>0.5V) then {setup peripherals to do Y}.
In fact, voltage > 0.5V is a peripheral (aka: the Analog Comparator + DAC loopback) on most uCs today. So in practice its:
"If (analog comparator) then {do Y}".
Except "if analog comparator" is itself an interrupt that you put into the interrupt table, so that the processor can sleep for minimum power usage. So really its all just configuration of interrupt table handlers, configuration of various peripherals, and then a massive amounts of sleep.
The RPI2040 is under a buck in bulk (the chip).
The Pine Ox64, The Milk-V duo and the RPI packages are all interesting products (at a sub 10 bucks each).
The MILK-V duo S is very appealing (form factor wise). If they ever mange to get POE/HDMI in version out it will be a killer product (even more so if they get all that into a sub 20 buck price point).