Microcontroller is a kind of integrated in the circuit chip, is the use of ultra-large-scale integrated circuit technology with data processing capabilities of the central processor CPU random memory RAM, read-only memory ROM, a variety of I / O port and interrupt system, timer / timer and other functions (may also include the display driver circuits, pulse-width modulation circuits, Analog multiplexer, A/D converter and other circuits) integrated into a piece of silicon constitutes a small but perfect computer system.
Single-chip microcomputer referred to as microcontroller, is a typical embedded microcontroller (Microcontroller Unit), commonly used in the English acronym MCU that microcontroller, it was first used in the field of industrial control. As a result of the widespread use of microcontrollers in the field of industrial control, in order to enable more people in the industry, students, enthusiasts, product developers to master the technology of microcontrollers, so the production of microcontroller development boards, more famous, such as the electronic people DZR-01A microcontroller development board. Microcontroller by the chip only CPU special processor development. The earliest design concept is to integrate a large number of peripheral devices and CPU in a chip, so that the computer system is smaller and easier to integrate into the complex and the volume of the strict requirements of the control equipment, INTEL's Z80 is the earliest in accordance with the idea of the design of the processor, and from then on, the development of single-chip and specialized processors will be separated. Early microcontrollers were 8-bit or 4-bit. One of the most successful was INTEL's 8031, which received great acclaim for its simplicity, reliability and good performance. Since then the MCS51 series of microcontroller systems have been developed on the 8031. The microcontroller system based on this system is still widely used until now. With the improvement of the requirements of the industrial control field, 16-bit microcontroller began to appear, but because of the price-performance ratio is not ideal and has not been widely used. 90's with the development of consumer electronics products, microcontroller technology has been greatly improved. With the INTEL i960 series, especially the later ARM series of widely used, 32-bit microcontrollers quickly replace the high-end status of 16-bit microcontrollers, and enter the mainstream market. The performance of the traditional 8-bit microcontroller has also been rapidly improved, and the processing power has been increased hundreds of times compared with that of the 80s. At present, the high-end 32-bit microcontroller main frequency has exceeded 300MHz, performance to catch up with the mid-90's dedicated processor, while the common model factory price fell to 1 U.S. dollars, the highest-end model is only 10 U.S. dollars. Contemporary microcontroller systems are no longer developed and used only in bare-metal environments, and a large number of specialized embedded operating systems are widely used on a full range of microcontrollers. The high-end microcontrollers used as the core processing of Pocket PCs and cell phones can even directly use dedicated Windows and Linux operating systems. Microcontrollers are better suited for embedded systems than dedicated processors, so they are the most widely used. In fact microcontrollers are the most numerous computers in the world. Microcontrollers are integrated in almost every electronic and mechanical product used in modern human life. Cell phones, telephones, calculators, household appliances, electronic toys, palmtop computers, and computer accessories such as mice are equipped with 1-2 microcontrollers. Personal computers also have a number of microcontrollers working in them. Automobiles are generally equipped with more than 40 microcontrollers, and complex industrial control systems may even have hundreds of microcontrollers working at the same time! The number of microcontrollers not only far exceeds the sum of PCs and other computing, even more than the number of humans. Microcontroller, also known as a single microcontroller, it is not to complete a certain logic function of the chip, but a computer system integrated into a chip. Equivalent to a miniature computer, and computers, compared to the microcontroller is only missing the I / O device. To summarize: a chip becomes a computer. It is small in size, light in quality, inexpensive, and provides convenient conditions for learning, application and development. At the same time, learning to use a microcontroller is the best choice to understand the principles and structure of the computer. Microcontroller internal and computer functions with similar modules, such as CPU, memory, parallel bus, and hard disk role of the same memory parts, the difference is that the performance of these parts are relative to our home computers are much weaker, but the price is also low, generally no more than 10 yuan can be ........... Use it to do some control of electrical appliances of a class is not very complex work enough. We now use the automatic drum washing machine, fume hood, VCD and other home appliances inside can see its figure! ........... It is mainly used as the core component of the control part. It is an on-line real-time control computer, on-line is the field control, the need is to have a strong anti-interference ability, lower cost, which is also and off-line computer (such as home PC) of the main difference. Microcontroller chip
Microcontroller is run by the program, and can be modified. Different programs can be used to achieve different functions, especially special and unique functions, which other devices require a lot of effort to do, and some are very difficult to do with a lot of effort. A not very complex function if the United States developed in the 1950s 74 series, or the 1960s CD4000 series of these pure hardware to deal with, the circuit must be a large PCB board! But if you use the series of microcontrollers that were successfully marketed in the 70's in the US, the results will be very different! Simply because microcontrollers can be programmed to be highly intelligent, highly efficient, and highly reliable! Because microcontrollers are cost-sensitive, the dominant software is still the lowest level of assembly language, which is in addition to the binary machine code above the lowest level of language, since it is so low-level why use it? Many high-level language has reached the level of visual programming why not use it? The reason is very simple, is that the microcontroller does not have a home computer like the CPU, there is no hard disk like the mass storage device. A small program written in a visual high-level language, even if there is only one button, will reach the size of tens of K. For the hard disk of a home PC, it's nothing! This is nothing for the hard disk of a home PC, but it is unacceptable for a microcontroller. Microcontrollers have to be very efficient in the utilization of hardware resources, so assembly is used a lot, even though it is primitive. The same reason, if the giant computer operating system and application software to the home PC to run, home PC's can not afford. It can be said that the twentieth century has spanned three "electric" ages, namely, the electrical age, the electronic age and now entering the computer age. However, this kind of computer, usually refers to personal computers, or PCs for short. It consists of a mainframe computer, a keyboard, a monitor, and so on. There is another type of computer that most people are not so familiar with. This type of computer is a microcontroller (also known as a microcontroller) that gives intelligence to various machines. As the name implies, the smallest system of this type of computer uses only a single integrated circuit for simple operations and control. Because of its small size, usually hidden in the controlled machinery "belly". It is in the whole device, plays a role as the role of the human mind, it went wrong, the whole device is paralyzed. Now, the use of this microcontroller has been a very wide range of areas, such as intelligent instrumentation, real-time industrial control, communications equipment, navigation systems, home appliances and so on. Once a variety of products with a microcontroller, you can play a role in upgrading the effectiveness of the product, often in the product name before the title of the adjective - "intelligent", such as intelligent washing machines and so on. Now some factory technicians or other amateur electronics developers to come up with certain products, either the circuit is too complex, or too simple and easy to imitate the function. The reason for this, may be stuck in the product does not use a microcontroller or other programmable logic devices.
From the development of microcontroller, the future of microcontroller technology will be multi-functional, high-performance, high-speed, low-voltage, low-power, peripheral circuits within the installed and on-chip memory capacity to increase the direction of development
.