Microcontrollers

The history of the microcontrollers

The microcontroller was invented at Texas Instruments in the early 1970s, at the same time as the first microprocessor was invented by Intel. The first microcontrollers were simply microprocessors with memory such as RAM and ROM. Later, microcontrollers evolved into a wide range of devices suitable for specific embedded system applications in devices such as cars, wireless phones and household appliances. During the 1990s, the market welcomed the microcontrollers with ROM programmable and electrically erasable memories, such as flash memory. These microcontrollers could be programmed, erased and reprogrammed using only electrical signals. Many current microcontrollers, such as those available from Microchip and Atmel, incorporate flash memory technology. Nowadays, in addition to general-purpose devices, specialized microcontrollers are produced in areas such as automotive, lighting, communications and low-power consumer devices. In 2010, Atmel announced a flash microcontroller in a package measuring 2 mm by 2 mm. These tiny microcontrollers are small and inexpensive enough to be used in products such as toys and toothbrushes.

Microcontroller design - What are the most important parameters of microcontrollers?

Currently there is a huge number of different types of microcontrollers on the market. IC manufacturers take care to provide many thousands of microcontroller models that differ in every possible parameter. Beginner programmers may have the impression that such a wide selection makes it impossible to choose anything. However, this is not true. A wide range of microcontrollers with different parameters allows you to choose the products that are perfectly fitted to every project. If your goal is to achieve measurement or control applications, small 8-bit (AVR, PIC, STM8) or 16-bit MSP430 microcontrollers will work perfectly. If your project is more demanding, it is recommended to use more complex 32-bit microcontrollers, which have more varied peripherals. Furthermore, in such microcontrollers the available RAM and FLASH memory is significantly increased. You can also use the most advanced microcontrollers, which allow you to display high quality graphics and perform floating point operations. An example of such is the STM32 microcontroller.

Microcontrollers in the Botland store offer

Botland employees are passionate about electronics, robotics and programming. That is why we want to provide a wide range of microcontrollers that can fit every project. We make sure that the selected products come from trusted suppliers and enjoy worldwide recognition. Therefore, in our offer you can find many popular devices, with a series of highly appreciated AVR processors from Atmel. The main advantage of these processors is the fact that they are particularly comfortable for amateur users and are perfect for educational purposes at universities and technical secondary schools. If you are a more advanced programmer, we recommend microcontrollers with 32-bit ARM core from STMicroelectronics (STM32) or NXP (LPC). Microcontrollers are based on different architectures and some of them are equipped with the increasingly popular Cortex M7 core. All processors come with the appropriate description and specifications so that you can easily select a product that suits your needs and project requirements.