Trying to make a small device

[evilbix]

I'm trying to invent something for my thesis in applied physics for my undergraduate degree. I've had some experience in digital and analog electronics. However, my most advanced projects to date are an automatic door and a simple processor with a single 8-bit bus.

I've only encountered microprocessors that were roughly 10cmx10cm in size. However, for this project I need to create a product that has the dimensions of 8cmx3cm. It could be bigger by 1cm on each side, however, smaller is better for my application.

What the chip needs to do is store when an event occurs (just the time) with a possible frequency of events being up to 50 a day (possibly more). I would also like to include a usb connection that is not listed in the dimensions (it will be appended to the end of the product) so that it could be interfaced with a pc, upon connection to a pc the software will copy the data on the device to the pc, and then wipe it clean.

Any help on finding a small board that can keep track of time and do the previous function would be awesome.

 

[PottedMeat]

Originally posted by: evilbix
I'm trying to invent something for my thesis in applied physics for my undergraduate degree. I've had some experience in digital and analog electronics. However, my most advanced projects to date are an automatic door and a simple processor with a single 8-bit bus.

I've only encountered microprocessors that were roughly 10cmx10cm in size. However, for this project I need to create a product that has the dimensions of 8cmx3cm. It could be bigger by 1cm on each side, however, smaller is better for my application.

What the chip needs to do is store when an event occurs (just the time) with a possible frequency of events being up to 50 a day (possibly more). I would also like to include a usb connection that is not listed in the dimensions (it will be appended to the end of the product) so that it could be interfaced with a pc, upon connection to a pc the software will copy the data on the device to the pc, and then wipe it clean.

Any help on finding a small board that can keep track of time and do the previous function would be awesome.

What do you mean 'microprocessors'? By the dimensions you give I assume a microcontroller demo board - it has a microcontroller ( the chip ~1cmx1cm surface mounted IC or a long thru-hole package ) and associated interfaces ( serial port, buttons, etc. ) and power ( voltage regulator / switching regulator ). Cypress Semiconductor sells a tiny USB microcontroller which I believe has quite a few analog / digital I/O and internal analog signal conditioning blocks. The demo board itself is about the size of a flash drive. I think it comes with a free C complier too. Last time I checked I think it was about $50 from digikey. I'm sure it has more than enough EEPROM storage and if not you should be able to interface a EEPROM to it. It's got a lot of interesting features but I've never used it before, only Microchip PICs with USB interfaces.

 

[BrownTown]

www.microchip.com

 

[Modelworks]

http://www.sparkfun.com/commer...o.php?products_id=8824
Not much bigger than a postage stamp

 

[evilbix]

That's exactly what I'm looking for, Modelworks! Thank you so much. I will do a little bit more research from the other suggestions, but I think that will do the trick.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[rebecca1286]

All the best dude....

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: evilbix
That's exactly what I'm looking for, Modelworks! Thank you so much. I will do a little bit more research from the other suggestions, but I think that will do the trick.

Thanks for the replies.

I don't know your background, but you could design a board much smaller than the one from SparkFun if you have time. I'd be willing to do it for you and all you'd have to pay for is the parts. That one will work, but a custom board could be a lot more flexible. Just throwing this out there.

 

[chorb]

If you plan on making your own board with the chip dont forget you need all those other parts that are on the board too, ie. the crystal, caps, and FET. I bet if you find the data sheet for the IC itself it'll list all the peripherals you must have to make the processor work. These parts will take up some space, so be aware.

Might be good time to decide how you're going to power the chip too, I know the regular arduino chip can run off a 9V battery (lowered to 5V through a regulator) for a limited amount of time. If you do decide to add in a USB connection you can power the IC that way through the 5V USB connector. Either way realize that both these methods take up space on the board too; I'm not really sure how tight your space constraints are, but hopefully this helps in the designing phase.