The micro PC movement awaits its revolutionary avatar in CHIP, a tiny Linux micro computer being actively developed at the Next Thing, which is crowd funding from the Kickstarter community for its latest product.

Chip has 1GHz R8 ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of flash storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, a USB port and a microphone jack. All this for a mere $9!

The Chip is an open hardware microcomputer and no screen or keyboard. It has a single circuit board which is the size of a credit card. The Chip also comes preloaded with various open source software including the LibreOffice, Chromium browser and Scratch.

What's more, you pay $49 and you own a Pocket Chip with a 4.3-inch touch screen with resistive touch, a QWERTY keyboard and 5-hour battery backup with a 3000mAh battery.

Next Thing Co. is a California-based company. The company launched a hackable gif camera named OTTO last year. Previously also, the company had resorted to crowd funding for raising over $71,000 for this $249 Raspberry Pi-based animated GIF camera.

Dave Rauchwerk, one of Next Thing's founders, said,"The $9 becomes really interesting when lots of people can help make it awesome. We wanted to find a way to not only give everyone access to it but to give them the ability to participate in this process of developing it".

The Kickstarter campaign has been receiving a warm response with the company already amassing $620,000, a sum eleven times greater than its original funding goal of $50,000. With nearly four more weeks still left, the company is geared to add to that figure.

Backers can opt for an optional VGA adaptor by paying an additional $19 or HDMI adaptor by shelling out extra $25. The Chip is expected to start shipping somewhere in December this year.