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Word Origin and Invention Origin David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

At the very beginning of processors there was no such difference between microcontrollers and processors as there is now. The first Intel CPU was the Intel 4004 released in 1971 which featured 4 bit bus. It was followed by an early 8-bit microprocessor 8008 in 1972 and 8080 in 1974. The Intel 8048 was released in 1975 and is considered to be the first microcontroller as it had RAM and ROM in the same chip. Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

The popularity of microcontrollers increased when EEPROM memory was incorporated to replace one time programmable PROM memory. With EEPROM, the development cycle of programming, testing and erasing a part could be repeated many times with the same part until the firmware was debugged and ready for production use. Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

Now days microcontrollers are low cost and readily available for hobbyists. Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

Synonyms: µC, MCU David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Simple Explanation David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

In layman's terms, microcontrollers contain programming, the means to execute that programming, and the capability to issue commands to external devices & David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Microcontrollers are also called a “system on chip,” and they incorporate everything needed to run a larger system: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• CPU (Central Processing Unit) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Programming memory (flash, EPROM, etc) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Runtime memory (RAM) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Inputs/outputs David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

These chips, like “mini computers,” control many electronic devices; for example, car engines, TV remote controls, power tools, printers, kitchen appliances, and other devices of all kinds often have a little microcontroller purring pleasantly somewhere inside. David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Kinds and their Uses David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

PIC: A family of Harvard architecture microcontrollers made by Microchip Technology, derived from the PIC1640 originally developed by General Instrument's Microelectronics Division. The name PIC initially referred to "Programmable Interface Controller", but shortly thereafter was renamed "Programmable Intelligent Computer". Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be. Over six billion of these chips have been sold around the world, they are very popular among hobbyists. David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Advantages:

• Low cost David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Widely available David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Easy to learn to program David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Small, reliable low-pin-count chips available David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Widely used and popular with hobbyists David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Extensive collection of application notes David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Low cost, free development tools David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Serial programming (and re-programming with flash memory) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Constant interrupt latency (this is unique to the PIC) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Disadvantages: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• Minimalist architecture (depending on perspective, this may be considered an advantage) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Comparatively low clock speed (slow processor) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Only one accumulator David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Small instruction set David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Memory must be directly referenced in arithmetic and logic operations Wikipedia:
  Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.
• Conditional skip instructions are used instead of conditional branch instructions used by most other architectures Wikipedia:
  Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.
• Assembly code that is difficult to understand (this can be improved with macros) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• No JTAG support until mid 2005 with the introduction of the PIC24 David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Compatibility between different PIC versions is not good David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Made by only one company (Microchip Technology), not an industry standard David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Related Microcontrollers: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• The Parallax SX: These are very similar to PICs, but much faster David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

8051: A Harvard architecture, single chip microcontroller (µC) which was developed by Intel in 1980 for use in embedded systems. Intel's original 8051 family was developed using NMOS technology, but later versions, identified by a letter "C" in their name, e.g. 80C51, used CMOS technology and were less power-hungry than their NMOS predecessors - this made them eminently more suitable for battery-powered devices. Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

Intel's original versions were popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, but has today largely been superseded by a vast range of faster and/or functionally enhanced 8051-compatible devices manufactured by more than 20 independent manufacturers. Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

Manufacturers of Compatible Devices: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• Atmel David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Infineon Technologies (formerly Siemens AG) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Maxim Integrated Products (via Dallas Semiconductor) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductor) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Winbond David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• ST Microelectronics David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Silicon Laboratories (formerly Cygnal) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Texas Instruments David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Cypress Semiconductor David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Advantages: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• Boolean processing engine David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Four different register sets (makes interrupt handling easier) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Huge selection from different companies David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• External memory buses are common on many 8051s that make adding peripherals and memory easy. David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Ubiquitous, industry standard architecture. Several free C compilers are available, as well as other high level languages. David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Compatibility amongst different 8051s is fairly good David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Disadvantages: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• Older 8051s are slow (12 clock cycles per instruction), newer ones are much faster (be aware of what you are buying) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Low pin-count 8051s are more limited in number than are PICs David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Related Microcontrollers: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• 8052: David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again. An enhanced version of the original Intel 8051 that featured 256 bytes of internal RAM instead of 128 bytes, 8 kB of ROM instead of 4 kB, and a third 16-bit timer. The 8052 is largely considered to be obsolete because these features and more are included in nearly all modern 8051 based microcontrollers. Wikipedia:
  Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

AVR: A Modified Harvard architecture 8-bit RISC single chip microcontroller (µC) which was developed by Atmel in 1996. The AVR was one of the first microcontroller families to use on-chip flash memory for program storage. Wikipedia:
Undoubtedly, you already know how usefull wikipedia can be.

Advantages: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• Good with programming languages like C (due to its built in pointers and closer adherence to RISC) David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Pipelined architecture tends to make it faster than 8051s and PICs David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Large number of registers David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Good range of chips are available David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Free C compilers are available David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Larger instruction set than PICs David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Many recent chips have an on-chip oscillator, removing the need for external clocks or resonator circuitry. Some AVRs have a system clock prescaler that can modify the clock speed via software during runtime. David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Compatibility between different AVR versions is fairly good David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Many chips support JTAG for programming and debugging David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

Disadvantages: David Hazel:
David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.

• Tends to be more expensive than 8051 and PIC David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.
• Made by only one company (Atmel). Not an industry standard David Hazel:
  David Hazel has been a key player for VCI since April of 2008. Not only is he a blast to have around the shop, but as our inhouse engineer, his knowledge and skill-sets have proven invaluable time and time again.