Microcontrollers

A Microcontroller (also MCU or µC) is a computer-on-a-chip. It is a type of microprocessor emphasizing high integration, low power consumption, self-sufficiency and cost-effectiveness, in contrast to a general-purpose microprocessor (the kind used in a PC).

Microcontrollers are frequently used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as automobile engine control systems, remote controls, office machines, appliances, robotics power tools, and toys. By reducing the size, cost, and power consumption compared to a design using a separate microprocessor, memory, and input/output devices, microcontrollers make it economical to electronically control many more processes.

Embedded design:
The majority of computer systems in use today are embedded in other machinery, such as telephones, clocks, appliances, and vehicles. An embedded system may have minimal requirements for memory and program length. Input and output devices may be discrete switches, relays, or solenoids. An embedded controller may lack any human-readable interface devices at all. For example, embedded systems usually don't have keyboards, screens, disks, printers, or other recognizable I/O devices of a personal computer. Microcontrollers may control electric motors, relays or voltages, and may read switches, variable resistors or other electronic devices.

Programming Environments:

Microcontrollers were originally programmed only in assembly language, but various high-level programming languages are now also in common use to target microcontrollers. These languages are either designed specially for the purpose, or versions of general purpose languages such as the C programming language. Compilers for general purpose languages will typically have some restrictions as well as enhancements to better support the unique characteristics of microcontrollers.

Interpreter firmware is also available for some microcontrollers. The Intel 8052 and Zilog Z8 were available with BASIC very early on, and BASIC is more recently used in the BASIC Stamp MCUs.Some microcontrollers have environments to aid developing certain types of applications, e.g. Analog Device's Blackfin processors with the LabVIEW environment and its programming language "C".

Simulators are available for some microcontrollers, such as in Microchip's MPLAB environment. These allow a developer to analyse what the behaviour of the microcontroller and their program should be if they were using the actual part. A simulator will show the internal processor state and also that of the outputs, as well as allowing input signals to be generated. While on the one hand most simulators will be limited from being unable to simulate much other hardware in a system, they can exercise conditions that may otherwise be hard to reproduce at will in the physical implementation, and can be the quickest way to debug and analyse problems.

Recent microcontrollers integrated with on-chip debug circuitry accessed by In-circuit emulator via JTAG enables a programmer to debug the software of an embedded system with a debugger.

Use of MICROCONTROLLERS in ROBOTIC’S depends on the requirement.


Click On This Link To Get A List Of Different MICROCONTROLLER’S Manufactured By Differnt Companies

Few of the Companies which manufacture MICROCONTROLLER’S are stated below:

1) ATMEL Corporation: It is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash microcontrollers. Its products include microcontrollers (including 8051 derivatives and AT91SAM and AT91CAP ARM-based micros), and its own ATMEL AVR and AVR32 architectures, radio frequency (RF) devices, EEPROM and Flash memory devices (including DataFlash-based memory), and a number of application-specific products. ATMEL supplies its devices as standard products, ASICs, or ASSP's depending on the requirements of its customers. In some cases it is able to offer system on chip solutions.

ATMEL serves a range of application segments including consumer, communications, computer networking, industrial, medical, automotive, aerospace and military. It is an industry leader in secure systems, notably for the smart card market.

Few of ATMEL Microcontroller’s

• AT89 series (Intel 8051 architecture)

• AT90, ATtiny, ATmega series (AVR architecture) (Atmel Norway design)

• AT91SAM (ARM architecture)

• AVR32 (32-bit AVR architecture)

• MARC4

2)Cypress MicroSystems :

(CMS) (not to be mistaken with the cypress tree) markets high-performance, field Programmable System-on-a-Chip (PSoC) integrated M8 micro-based solutions. CMS is based in Lynnwood, near Seattle, Washington and was established as a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation in the fourth quarter of 1999. Who's one of the best engineer is Bert Sullam. Now cypresses micro chips has grown from a small simple chip too one of the best and highest quality micro chips now you can find it any where.

Cypress MicroSystems was purchased by Cypress Semiconductor in the 4th quarter of 2005 consistent with the original business plan of the start up.

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