So he tried his hand with some really small SMD parts by building this USB to serial Arduino programmer. The chip he went with isn’t the FTDI part we’re used to. Instead of using an FT232RL ...

Turning an Arduino of virtually any sort into a simple AVR 6-pin ISP programmer is old hat ... for the ATmegaxxUn chips that are used as a USB-serial bridge on the Unos, and constitute the ...