Microcontroller:
A Microcontroller is essentially a small and self- sufficient computer on a chip, used to control devices It has all the memory and I/O it needs on board Is not expandable –no external bus interface Characteristics of a Microcontroller
• Low cost, on the order of $1
• Low speed, on the order of 10 KHz –20 MHz
• Low Power, extremely low power in sleep mode
• Small architecture, usually an 8-bit architecture
• Small memory size, but usually enough for the type of application it is intended for. Onboard Flash.
• Limited I/O, but again, enough for the type of application intended for.
Microprocessor:
A Microprocessor is fundamentally a collection of on/off switches laid out over silicon in order to perform computations Characteristics of a Microprocessor
• High cost, anywhere between $20 -$200 or more!
• High speed, on the order of 100 MHz –4 GHz
• High Power consumption, lots of heat
• Large architecture, 32-bit, and recently 64-bit architecture
• Large memory size, onboard flash and cache, with an external bus interface for greater memory usage
• Lots of I/O and peripherals, though Microprocessors
tend to be short on General purpose I/O
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