I’m doing the market-survey part of a university project on MCU firmware flashing/programming supply chains

General
1

What MCUs are most commonly used in cheap appliances, toys, small control boards, and low-cost consumer products? I’m trying to identify a realistic lab target.

Current candidates:

  • STM32F103C8T6 Blue Pill + ST-Link V2 clone
  • STM8S003/STM8S103 board + ST-Link clone
  • ESP32-C3/S3 dev board + USB-UART/ESP-Prog
  • AVR/PIC + USBasp/PICkit
  • CH341A-type tools for external flash/EEPROM workflows

My question is: which of these best represents what cheap vendors actually use, and which programmer/debugger tools are most common in the real market?

I’m asking from a market/practical perspective, not for exploit instructions.

2

I’m not sure how this is exactly relevant to RTEMS, could you please clarify your question perhaps add a bit more context?

3

I just felt like a lot of people here would be dealing in embedded systems so asked here

4

ok, I’m closing this as off-topic. Feel free to ask about affordable options relevant to RTEMS, or to identify some of your specific needs for hardware in your project.