2.1 Notes Difference Between Microcontroller and Microprocessor
2.1 Notes Difference Between Microcontroller and Microprocessor
Microprocessor is an IC which has the only CPU inside them. microprocessors don't have RAM,
ROM or any other peripheral on-chip. The system designer has to add them externally to make
microprocessor functional. Some example of microprocessors are 8086, Intel Pentium, Core 2
duo,i3 and i5. Application of microprocessor includes Desktop PC, Notepad, laptop etc.
Microcontrollers have Processing Unit CPU in addition with the fixed amount of RAM, ROM,
input-output and other peripherals all embedded on a single chip. The different manufacturer
produces microcontroller with the wide range of features available in different versions, some
microcontroller manufacturers are Atmel, Motorola, Microchip, NXP, and Freescale.
Microcontrollers are designed to perform a specific task, depend on input some processing
needs to be done and the output is delivered, for example washing machine, camera, pen drive,
TV remote etc.
Since applications are very specific they required very less amount of resources like RAM, ROM
and input-output ports hence can be embedded on a single chip. This, in turn, reduces the size
of the product and the cost.
Microprocessors find application where the tasks are unspecific like photo editing, creating a
document, developing software, playing a game in such cases the relation between Input and
the output is not defined and the required large amount of resources like RAM and ROM.
In case of microprocessors the memory and the input-output port has to be connected
externally hence circuit become very large
and due to use of external component enter power consumption is very high and it is not
suitable to use with devices running on stored power like batteries.
Since memory and input-output ports are present internally on the microcontroller, the
microcontroller based circuits are very small
total power consumption is less in microcontroller and we can use a microcontroller with the
devices running on stored power supply like a battery.