ECE3003 – Microcontroller and its Applications

DIGITAL ASSIGNMENT – I
Name: Meghana R
Reg No: 20BEC1042
Slot: F1

1. Identify at least 10 industrial manufacturers of microcontrollers/industries having the

microcontroller-based automation system (Name, Complete Address, Product Name,
and Applications)

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single MOS integrated circuit chip. A

microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and
programmable input/output peripherals. They are essentially simple miniature personal
computers (PCs) designed to control small features of a larger component, without a complex
front-end operating system (OS).
A few industrial manufacturers of microcontrollers are;
i. Infineon
Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, when
the semiconductor operations of the former parent company Siemens AG were spun off. It is
headquartered in Neubiberg, Germany. It is one of the ten largest semiconductor
manufacturers worldwide.
The Infineon microcontroller offers a comprehensive product range that includes 32-bit
microcontrollers that offer strong performance and future proven security solutions, along
with traditional 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers. Their 32-bit MCU product portfolio
includes XMC, TRAVEO T2G, PSoC, Auto PSoC, FM and MOTIX Embedded Power
(System-on-Chip) which are based on Arm Cortex-M technology, as well as AURIX which
uses TriCore technology. Infineon’s broad portfolio of microcontrollers offers scalable and
high-performance solutions for a range of applications for automotive, industrial and
consumer markets.
For example, the 32-bit AURIX TriCore microcontroller is used for sensor fusion in
automotive applications, for computing and data storage in communication field, in wireless
charging, in smart speakers, etc.

1
 ii. Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated is an American technology company headquartered in
Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits,
which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally.
Their diverse portfolio includes 16- and 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) that are Arm-based
MCUs, C2000 real-time MCUs, and the MSP430 MCU series. They are optimized for
industrial and automotive applications. Backed by decades of expertise and innovative
hardware and software solutions, their MCUs meet the needs of any design and budget.
For instance, their Arm-based MCU series is highly integrated with low cost. It brings
capabilities such as functional safety, power efficiency, real-time control, advanced
networking, analytics and security to the designs. It is used in enterprise systems in data
centres and in enterprise computing, in building automation systems in industries, in
connecting peripherals and printers, for portable electronics, etc.

iii. Renesas electronics

Renesas Electronics Corporation (Runesasu Erekutoronikusu Kabushiki Gaisha) is a
Japanese semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, initially incorporated
in 2002 as Renesas Technology, the consolidated entity of the semiconductor units
of Hitachi and Mitsubishi excluding their dynamic random-access memory businesses, to
which NEC Electronics merged in 2010, resulting in a minor change in the corporate name
and logo to as it is now.
Renesas Electronics offers microcontroller (MCU) products that provide excellent
expandability while allowing customers to make full use of existing resources. Available in a
wide array of memory and package options, Renesas microcontrollers are fast, highly
reliable, low in cost, and deliver eco-friendly performance. Incorporating the latest process
technology, which enables integration of large-capacity flash memory, they are used in a
wide array of applications, including demanding fields that require high quality and high
reliability, such as the automotive industry.
Their portfolio includes 8-, 16-, and 32-bit microcontrollers in the series RA, RE, RH850,
RL78, RX, and Synergy MCU having the Arm-Core and Renesas Core with different
qualities for a variety of applications.
For example, their 32-bit MCU from the RX family having a Renesas Core is used in
manufacturing automotive body and for chassis & safety in the automobile industry, in IoT
for smart home systems, and smart appliances, for power line communication and for energy
generation and distribution under green environment systems.

2
 iv. EPSON
Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics
company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers, information and
imaging related equipment. It is headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan. The company has
numerous subsidiaries worldwide and manufactures inkjet, dot matrix, thermal and laser
printers for consumer, business and industrial use, robots and industrial automation
equipment, semiconductor devices, crystal oscillators, sensing systems and other associated
electronic components.
EPSON produces a range of 4-,8-, 16- and 32-bit MCUs. Low power technology and a highly
efficient processor are all built into a single chip. With this one-chip solution, Epson
continues to offer optimum products for small-sized battery-driven equipment, operation
panel controllers, and sensor built-in healthcare products and housing equipment.
The S1C63 family consists of 4-bit MCUs, S1C88 is of 8-bit, S1C17 family is of 16-bit
MCUs and the S1C33 family (Epson 32-bit RISC core) and S1C31 family (ARM Cortex-
M0+) are of 32-bit MCUs.
For instance, the microcontrollers from the S1C33 family with RISC core is used in
residential aircons, in eSIM applications, in battery management systems (BMS), in telecom
infrastructures, etc.

v. Toshiba
Toshiba Corporation (Kabushikigaisha Tōshiba) is a
Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified
products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators
and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives (HDD), printers,
batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography. As a semiconductor
company and the inventor of flash memory, Toshiba had been one of the top 10 in the chip
industry until its flash memory unit was spun off as Toshiba Memory, later Kioxia, in the late
2010s.
Toshiba produces MCUs having the Arm Core and the Toshiba cores. Families like TXZ+
Advanced level, TXZ, TX and TXZ+ Entry level microcontrollers have the Arm Core. The
TLCS Family has the Toshiba cores. These families have verities of 8- and 32-bit MCUs.
Toshiba offers both general purpose and application specific MCUs. Through the
incorporation of high-quality memory, low power precision mixed-signal components, and
rich peripheral options with a wide range of packages, Toshiba’s MCUs excel in specialized
applications for motor control and connectivity. These MCUs are ideal for applications in
home appliances, heating and cooling systems, and other industrial equipment.
For example, the TXZ+ series MCUs are used for advanced engines production, for flexible
home appliances, for programmable motor drives, for data storage, for functional safety, etc.

3
 vi. Microchip Technology
Microchip Technology Inc. is a American corporation that manufactures microcontroller,
mixed-signal, analog and Flash-IP integrated circuits. Its products include microcontrollers,
Serial EEPROM devices, Serial SRAM devices, embedded security devices, radio
frequency (RF) devices, thermal, power and battery management analog devices, as well as
linear, interface and wireless products. Its corporate headquarters is located in Chandler,
Arizona.
Microchip Technology’s portfolio consists of scalable 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit
microcontrollers (MCUs). Their 8-bit portfolio consists of devices constructed under two
architectures: PIC microcontrollers or AVR microcontrollers. Key features of the 8-bit
microcontrollers are Core Independent Peripherals, low-power performance with picoPower
and eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology and EMI/EMC performance. The 16-bit
microcontrollers, such as the PIC24, offer an upgrade over the 8-bit devices in features and
peripherals (e.g., more memory, additional pins). The 16-bit microcontrollers are constructed
under the PIC microcontroller architecture. Their 32-bit product portfolio run at up to 600
DMIPs with up to 2048 KB Flash and 512 KB RAM with 32 MB integrated DDR2 dynamic
random-access memory (DRAM) or 128 MB externally addressable options. The 32-bit
portfolio addresses advanced graphics and Internet of things (IoT) applications.
For example, their 32-bit PIC microcontrollers are used for embedded security solutions, for
providing intelligent power supplies, for graphical displays like OLED and CSTN, for 3D
gesture controllers like touchpads and touch screens, for automotive connectivity, etc.

vii. NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a Dutch multinational semiconductor manufacturer with
headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands that focuses in the automotive industry. The
company was founded in 1953 as part of the electrical and electronics firm Philips, with
manufacturing and development in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Known then as Philips
Semiconductors, the company was sold to a consortium of private equity investors in 2006, at
which point the company's name was changed to NXP.
NXP Semiconductors is a prominent supplier of embedded controllers with a strong legacy in
both the industrial and consumer market. They have a broad portfolio of MCUs across our 8-,
16- and 32-bit platforms- featuring remarkable edge low-power, analog, control and
communications IP.
They have a variety of microcontrollers like Arm-Based MCUs, Automotive MCUs, with
Power Architecture, Wireless Connectivity MCUs, and Legacy MCUs. There are many K
series and the LPC series of microcontrollers under the general purpose MCUs having the
Arm Cortex.

4
For instance, the 32-bit S32K Automotive MCU is used to simplify software development,
and for automotive and industrial development. S32K3 helps reduce automotive software cost
and complexity, enabling the development of smarter, safer, and more secure vehicles. Part of
the S32K family of microcontrollers, S32K3 MCUs targets body domain controllers, body
control modules, body electronics, and more automotive applications, but also for industrial
designs.

viii. Rabbit Semiconductor

Rabbit Semiconductor is an American company which designs and sells the Rabbit family of
microcontrollers and microcontroller modules. Rabbit Semiconductor was purchased in 2006
by Digi International. Before the purchase, Rabbit Semiconductor was a division of Z-World,
Inc. Z-World developed and manufactured embedded controller products as well as
embedded software development environments. It is headquartered in Davis, California, US.
Rabbit Semiconductors have a range of MCUs like the Rabbit 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 and
6000. Among all, the Rabbit 2000 is most known and it is a high-performance 8-
bit microcontroller designed by Rabbit Semiconductor for embedded system applications.
The instruction set is based on the original Z80 microprocessor, but with some additions of
new instructions as well as deletions of some instructions.
The Rabbit 3000 is a variant of the Rabbit 2000 with the same core, but more powerful
integrated peripherals. The Rabbit 3000A variant adds a small number of additional
instructions for I/O and large integer arithmetic. The Rabbit 4000 again adds more integrated
peripherals. The further derivatives, starting with the Rabbit 5000 have a substantially
different architecture. Most of the Rabbit microcontrollers come with built-in flash memory
and SRAM. They also have ADC and timers built-in.
The Rabbit 2000 is used in embedded systems, networking systems, IoT software and
services.

ix. Nuvoton
Nuvoton Technology Corporation is a Taiwan-based semiconductor company established in
2008. It spun off from Winbond Electronics Corp. as a wholly owned subsidiary. Nuvoton's
main product lines are microcontroller application IC, audio application IC, cloud &
computing IC, and foundry service. Its consumer electronics ICs focus mainly
on microcontroller ICs and voice and speech ICs. The company is headquartered in Hsinchu
Science and Industrial Park, Taiwan.
Nuvoton offers a variety of products with the best performance critical to the success of
consumers and industrial products. Nuvoton has 8-bit and 32-bit MCUs in its portfolio. They
produce the 8051 MCUs under 8-bit and Arm Cortex M0 and M4 microcontrollers are
produced under the 32-bit MCUs with a wide range of series in each of them.

5
For instance, the M031 series of the 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 core is used in gaming consoles,
in portable electronic devices, in medical appliances, in automotive battery monitored
systems, in smart home appliances, etc.

x. Holtek
Holtek Semiconductor Inc. is a Taiwan-based semiconductor design centre and provider with
its headquarters and design operations based in the Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan, and has
sales offices located in USA and India. Holtek Semiconductor was established as a design
house in Taipei in 1983. From the design of remote control, telecom and voice/music devices,
the company moved into microcontroller design. In 1988 the company moved to the Hsinchu
Science Park under the name of Holtek Microelectronics and began also its combined
manufacturing and design operations.
Holtek's design focus is in both 32-bit and 8-bit along with
Touch microcontroller development. Holtek's 32-bit series is based on ARM Cortex-
M0+ and Cortex-M3 cores. They are also producing 8051 based controllers, but the majority
of their 8-bit microcontrollers are based on a core designed in-house that is very similar to
the Microchip PIC16 architecture. All have common features such as timers, external
interrupts, power-down functions, low-voltage reset, bi-directional I/O pins etc. The range of
microcontrollers support clock speeds from 32 kHz up to 20 MHz. Device specific features
include functions such as EEPROM memory, A/D converters, LCD interfaces, USB
interfaces, operational amplifiers.
For example, the HT32F51XX ARM M3 core based 32-bit series is used in consumer
product field such as household appliances, computer peripheral products, remote controllers,
leisure products, medical equipment as well as industrial controllers. The microcontrollers are
in home appliances including brands such as Philips, Siemens, Märklin and Japanese brands
such as Futaba and Sony.

To conclude, microcontrollers are used everywhere in our daily lives.

Microcontrollers can be used in a number of applications including simple
applications (like controlling basic devices) to the advanced applications (getting
feedback from a device and perform actions based on the feedback). Thus,
microcontrollers are omni-present and have numerous applications in this tech-driven
world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Discuss the following processors and compare the specifications:

 ARM Processor
 Intel I (i3, i5, i7, i8, i10) Series Processors

6
A processor is an integrated electronic circuit that performs the calculations that run a
computer. A processor performs arithmetical, logical, input/output (I/O) and other basic
instructions that are passed from an operating system (OS). Most other processes are
dependent on the operations of a processor.
Processors are found in many modern electronic devices, including PCs, smartphones,
tablets, and other handheld devices. Their purpose is to receive input in the form of program
instructions and execute trillions of calculations to provide the output that the user will
interface with.
To sum up, the processor, is arguably the most important hardware component. It’s
responsible for telling the other parts what to do, much like our brain. The processor is also
an integral component in determining how useful an electronic device will be.
Processors are ranked in terms of hertz, or more commonly gigahertz e.g., 2.5 GHz. This is
the frequency they run at. Generally, the higher the speed, the better the performance.

 Intel: Intel is the most popular and well-known maker of processors. Manufacturers
like Dell, Apple, Samsung and HP all use Intel processors in their computers. Intel
processors are the most stable and offer the best all-round performance. The current
i3, i5 and i7 models represent entry, middle and high-level hardware.
 ARM: ARM processors are generally used in smartphones, mobile devices and
tablets. Apple’s iPhone and iPad; Samsung’s Galaxy line and HTC devices all use
some form of ARM processor in their mobile devices.

The processors can be compared on the following basis;

 Instruction Set
Intel processors use Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC), whereas ARM processors
use Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC). Although both handle fast commands, due to
numerous cores, the CISC employs a little more complex instruction set that necessitates
multiple cycles to complete operations.

The primary idea behind CISC is complex hardware and simple software. That indicates
more fundamental assembly language functionality in this case. RISC is based on the idea of
simple hardware and complex software. Greater capability in lower-level programming
languages, such as assembly, can be a game-changer when it comes to lowering power usage.

 Software Compatibility
It is possible for software meant for one type of CPU to be run on the other, but this usually
comes with large penalties in performance and inefficiency.
ARM (generally) works better in smaller tech that does not have access to a power source at
all times, while Intel focuses more on performance, which makes it the better processor for
more extensive tech.

7
  Power Consumption

The power consumption of ARM-based CPUs is a considerable advantage over Intel and
other x86 processors. It turns out that the RISC technique, along with ARM's design
innovation, results in extremely cheap CPUs. This is why the smartphone and tablet markets
have been controlled by ARM.
The ARM processors not only consume less battery power thanks to their single-cycle
computing set, but they also have a reduced operating temperature than Intel processors.

 Processor Speed & Performance

ARM chips are usually slower than their Intel counterparts because they compute with low
power consumption. While most users wouldn’t notice a difference in their respective
devices, Intel processors get designed for faster computing. Intel and other x86 CISC
processors crush ARM-based RISC CPUs.

 Core symmetry
The usage of asymmetrical CPU cores is an intriguing advantage on the ARM side of things.
Multiple, but identical, cores are found in Intel and other x86 processors. ARM CPUs, on the
other hand, frequently feature many cores that are all different.
So, it means that we can have the advantage of high peak performance in short bursts as
needed and also enjoy long battery life averaged out over a battery charge cycle when we use
asymmetrical CPU cores that are different.

To conclude, Intel processors are faster and more powerful than ARM
processors. However, ARM processors are more mobile-friendly than Intel CPUs.
Therefore, both ARM and Intel processors have their benefits and drawbacks.
Choosing which is better for us heavily depends on what we’d like to do with our tech
devices and if they’re compatible with other hardware and software.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8
9