Thanks for the comments to my post below. It seems like I wasn't clear about the needs for the project when I ask for suggestions on component choice. Instead of continuing the thread below, let me start fresh here.
I'm trying to build a portable, low power sound player that plays the selected sound clips from user command. Here are the specs:
- Low power
- Small (at the size of a wrist-watch)
- Have 8 GIPO (8-pin input)
- 8-bit audio
- 64~256 short audio clips (2~5 seconds each) at 11kHz
- I have a bunch of free AT49BV162* flash memory to play with
- I have used Atmel once, but if other options are easier to program, I'll still go with them.
- Needs to download the audio clips from USB
- Hopefully cheap (I don't need extra features)
Can anybody suggest a simple, easy to interface and program microcontroller for this project? I'm looking at Atmel's choices, but I'm not sure if I should go for the USB AVRs or ATtiny or Atmega. Ease of design is my first priority, then compactness and cost.
I'm especially concerned about how to interface the atmel controllers to AT49BV162* flash memory and how to load the data to it using USB. Should I use GPIO or there are direct memory mapping pins?
Thanks!