You might just have a solution if you need an extra-tiny board for your do-it-yourself electronics projects. Moddo has made what it says is the “world’s smallest” Arduino-compatible board, the Pinch.
The design measures just 0.43 inches by 0.41 inches, and is small enough to fit on a fingertip. Even so, it still offers USB-C support (including native functionality for CDC serial programming, input devices, and MIDI). There’s a 16-pin header for expansion, an RGB LED, and a reset button. If it’s too small to work on, Moddo offers a breakout board kit to provide more breathing room.
- Memory Type
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4KB static RAM
- Form Factor
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0.43″ x 0.41″
- Chipset
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Microchip ATSAMD11D14A
The Moddo Pinch is billed as the wordl’s smallest Arduino-compatible board, but still includes a 32-bit chip and USB-C support.
The board revolves around a 32-bit Microchip ATSAMD11D14A microcontroller based on ARM Cortex-M0+, with 4KB of static RAM and 16KB of flash storage. Configuration details and code are available through a GitHub repository.
Moddo’s size claim appears to hold up. As CNX Software explains, the previous record holder was the 0.45in by 0.41in Atto board using a much less powerful 8-bit Microchip ATmega32U4. While the Raspberry Pi-based RPDot was technically smaller at 0.39in square, it hasn’t been available for sale — this is something you can easily buy.
Board creator “jus-kim” revealed on Reddit that the physical design wasn’t the most difficult challenge. Rather, it was the feat of building a custom Arduino board package and fitting the customized 4KB bootloader. The answer involved reusing the bootloader’s USB CDC system to save “a lot” of flash memory space.
Moddo Pinch price and release date
You’ll have to wait a short while
The Pinch is available for pre-order now for $16, with shipping expected in September. The outlay includes a breakout board and male 0.1in pitch header pins.
This isn’t the cheapest Arduino-compatible board, as you can find some at or under the $10 mark. However, the size and relative processing power are the key — this can fit into very compact Internet of Things (IoT) and smart home projects where fractions of an inch matter, even if you need a little more computing power than usual. The support for input devices also makes it viable for more advanced work where a keyboard or mouse comes into play.
