The ATtiny85 is an 8 bit AVR microcontroller manufactured by Microchip and its design is based on RISC architecture. The ATtiny85 is a very popular microcontroller due to its small compact size, flexibility and low cost making the ATtiny chip ideal for projects which require simple programming. ATtiny85 can also be programmed with an Arduino, has a low power consumption with the voltage range 2.7V to 5.5V and is available in various packages such as SOIC-8 and DIP.

The ATtiny85 microcontroller has 8 pins which are assigned with multiple functions. These pins are used to connect external components to the microcontroller, either inputs like sensors, buttons or serial connections, or outputs like LEDs, motors and buzzers. The chip has three built in memories:

• Flash memory
• EEPROM
• SRAM
• 32 general purpose registers

ATtiny85 Typical Applications

This compact microcontroller can be used in applications where small sized embedded chips are required. They can be found in hand held devices where no more than two sensors are required. The ATtiny85 is often used by hobbyists and engineers for small projects where the required number of I/O pins is very low (ATtiny85 has only six I/O pins) and the speed is not a big issue.