Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Microcontroller |
Electrical Engineering | A microprogrammed machine, a microprocessor or a microcomputer used in a control operation-that is, to direct or make changes in a process or operation. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A microcontroller is a microprocessor optimised to be used to control electronic equipment (see embedded system). Microcontrollers represent the vast majority of all computer chips sold, over 50% are "simple" controllers, and another 20% are more specialized DSP's. While you may have one or two general-purpose microprocessors in your house (you're using one to read this), you likely have somewhere between one and two dozen microcontrollers. They can be found in almost any electrical device, washing machines, microwave ovens, telephones etc.
A microcontroller includes CPU, memory for the program (ROM), memory for data (RAM, I/O lines to communicate with peripherals and complementary resources, all this in a closed chip. A microcontroller differs from a standalone CPU, because the first one generally is quite easy to make into a working computer, with a minimum of external support chips. The idea is that the microcontroller will be placed in the device to control, hooked up to power and any information it needs, and that's that.
A traditional microprocessor won't allow you to do this, it expects all of these tasks to be handled by other chips.
For instance, a typical microcontroller will have a built in clock generator and a small amount of RAM and ROM/EPROM/EEPROM, meaning that to make it work, all that is needed is some control software and a timing crystal. Microcontrollers will also usually have a variety of input/output devices, such as AD converters, timers, UARTs and specialised serial interface buses like I²C and CAN. Often these integrated devices can be controlled by specialised processor instructions.
Some modern microcontrollers include a built-in high-level programming language; BASIC is quite common for this.
Microcontrollers trade speed and flexibility for ease-of-use. There's only so much room on the chip to include functionality, so for every I/O device or memory the microcontroller includes, some other circuitry has to be removed. Finally, it must be mentioned that some microcontroller architectures are available from many different vendors in so many varieties that they could rightly belong to a category of their own. Chief among these are the 8051 and Z80 derivatives.
See also: In-circuit emulator (ICE), microbotics
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Microcontroller."
Crosswords: MICROCONTROLLER |
| Specialty definitions using "MICROCONTROLLER": bus master ♦ Intel 8048, Intel 8051, Intel 8751 ♦ Motorola 68HC11 ♦ SCI port, serial communications interface port. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "MICROCONTROLLER" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "MICROCONTROLLER" is used about 15 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 15 | 90,616 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "MICROCONTROLLER"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 微型控制器. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | mikrocontroller. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | microbesturingseenheid. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | mikroprosessori (microprocessor, microprocessor unit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
French | microsystème, microcontrôleur. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Mikrosteuergerät, Mikrocontroller. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | μικροελεγκτής. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | microcontrollore. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | icrocontrollermay microcontrolador. (various references) microrregulador, microcontrolador. (various references) styrprocessor. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-c-e-i-l-l-m-n-o-o-o-r-r-r-t" | |
-5 letters: collection, controller, correction, ritornello. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Crosswords 2. Usage: Commercial 3. Usage Frequency 4. Expressions: Internet | 5. Translations: Modern 6. Anagrams 7. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
