Microcontrollers, or a short success story
Before anyone started thinking about microcontrollers, the world went crazy about digital integrated circuits, which became popular thanks to the huge success of the TTL 74xx family and allowed the construction of the first "real" computers. Despite the enormous miniaturization of those times, these devices were complex, took up a lot of space and consumed a lot of power from the mains. The introduction of microprocessors - systems containing an arithmetic-logic unit (ALU), address and data buses, and necessary peripheral systems, significantly increased the capabilities of digital devices. However, the problem of system complexity remained unsolved - in addition to the microprocessor, it was necessary to use a large number of decoders, external logic and interface systems and various types of memory. Only single-chip microcontrollers , integrating not only the ALU, but also program and data memories and a number of additional peripheral circuits (digital and analog), allowed practically any, even very complex, project to be implemented cheaply and quickly .
Microcontroller structure - What parameters of microcontrollers are the most important?
Currently, leading manufacturers of integrated circuits offer many thousands of models of microcontrollers, differing in virtually all parameters. Such a wealth of variants is a headache for beginners, but in fact it is a blessing for electronics engineers and programmers, who can almost freely choose the perfect systems for a specific project. Small microcontrollers are perfect for simpler control or measurement applications , e.g. 8-bit AVR, PIC or STM8, or 16-bit MSP430. As the requirements increase, the complexity of the architecture (32 bits), the number and variety of peripheral systems, and the available RAM and FLASH memory increase dramatically. The most complex microcontrollers (e.g. STM32) are even equipped with coprocessors designed to perform floating-point operations or systems supporting the display of high-quality graphics .
Microcontrollers available at the Botland store
As roboticists, we know perfectly well how necessary microcontrollers are in our field of technology. That is why in this category we have provided a wide range of microcontrollers from leading manufacturers of these systems. Here you will find a wide selection of simple, well-known and popular AVR processors from Atmel (ATmega and ATtiny families) , not only liked by amateurs, but also willingly used in simple everyday devices or... in universities and secondary technical schools. For more advanced projects, we recommend microcontrollers with a 32-bit ARM core, manufactured by ST Microelectronics (STM32) or NXP (LPC) . Depending on the version, these processors may be based on the ARM Cortex-M0+, M3 or M4 architectures, although super-efficient microcontrollers with the CortexM7 core are becoming more and more popular.
Microcontroller and microprocessor
Microprocessor and microcontroller - what is the difference? A microcontroller is an integrated circuit that has a specialized microprocessor that is capable of autonomous operation and has been designed to work in control and measurement systems. A microcontroller is basically a microprocessor extended with additional memory and communication systems.
