This ATtiny45V is an low voltage version of the ATtiny45 8-pin DIP IC with impressive capabilities!

The AVR series of microcontrollers are right up there with Microchip PIC products. Powerful, inexpensive, and programmable with some very good open source software (look up GCC), with a vibrant user community.

• 4K Bytes of In-System Self-Programmable Flash
• 256 Bytes In-System Programmable EEPROM
• 256 Bytes Internal SRAM
• Two 8-bit timer/counters with PWM and prescaler
• 10-bit ADC, USI-Universal Serial Interface
• debugWIRE for on-chip-debug
• Up to 20 MIPS throughput at 20 MHz
• 1.8 – 5.5 V operation.

For a small, low-voltage, single-purpose applications, it’s a cheap and powerful solution! Hmmm… looks like it’d be happy running on solar power too!