Microprocessor Vs Microcontroller

Microprocessor

A device that integrates the functions of the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer onto one semiconductor chip or integrated circuit (IC). In essence, the microprocessor contains the core elements of a computer system, its computation and control engine. Only a power supply, memory, peripheral interface ICs, and peripherals (typically input/output and storage devices) need be added to build a complete computer system.

Microcontroller

A single chip that contains the processor (the CPU), non-volatile memory for the program (ROM or flash), volatile memory for input and output (RAM), a clock and an I/O control unit. Microcontroller can be called as “Computer on a chip”.

Difference between Microprocessor & Microcontroller

Main difference between microprocessor and microcontroller is, microprocessor is only CPU where as microcontroller is single chip contain CPU, memory(ROM/FLASH, RAM, EEPROM etc) and peripherals (IO ports, timers, watch dog timer, ADC, DAC etc.)

Microcontrollers are popularly used in small scale & medium scale embedded systems. Designing a system and implementing it in controllers is simple and has cost advantage compare to microprocessor. No extra work need to add memory and peripherals to the system.

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Examples of microprocessor:

Intel 4004 (4 bit processor).

Intel 8008, 8080, 8085, Zilog Z80, Motorola 6800, National Semiconductor IMP-8 (8-bit processor)

National semiconductor IMP-16, Intel 8086, TI TMS 9900 (16-bit processor)

Motorola 68000, AT&T Bell Labs BELLMAC-32A, Intel iAPX432, x86, ARM processors, AMD etc (32-bit processor).

AMD64, Intel64 (64-bit processor)

Examples of Microcontroller:

Intel 8051 & its derivatives from other companies, Motorola 68HC11,  TI MSP430 series, PIC, ARM, Zilog etc.

In next post we will discuss, Processor/controller selection procedure.

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