The MCU chip is mainly composed of an operator, a register and a controller. The three parts are connected to each other. The controller is responsible for issuing operation commands, the operator is responsible for computing, and the register is responsible for storing the result. MCU has won the favor of the market with its low power consumption and small size. It has undergone several changes in just two decades, and its performance has become more and more powerful.
MCU (Microcontroller Unit), also known as Single Chip Microcomputer, is to appropriately reduce the frequency and specifications of the Central Process Unit, and integrate peripheral interfaces such as memory, Timer, USB, A/D conversion, UART, PLC, DMA, and even LCD driver. The circuits are integrated on a single chip to form a chip-level computer, which can be controlled in different combinations for different applications. Such as mobile phones, PC peripherals, remote controls, to automotive electronics, industrial stepper motors, robotic arm control, etc., all use MCU.
The early MCU chips are all 4-bit or 8-bit, because of their good performance and convenience and reliability, they have been well received in the market and have been widely used.
The 16-bit MCU chip that appeared later was born in response to the high requirements of the industrial control field, but unexpectedly it has not been widely used.
Until the late 1990s, MCU chip technology was greatly improved, and 32-bit MCUs were produced, which soon replaced the status of 16-bit MCUs and were recognized by the mainstream market. The early 8-bit MCU was not eliminated from the market because of this. With the blessing of technology, the performance of the 8-bit MCU has been improved, and the processing capacity has also been greatly improved.
4-bit MCUs are mostly used in calculators, car instruments, car anti-theft devices, pagers, wireless phones, CD players, LCD drive controllers, LCD game consoles, children's toys, scales, chargers, tire pressure gauges , temperature and humidity meter, remote control and point-and-shoot camera, etc...
The operating frequency of 8-bit MCU is between 16 and 50 MHz, emphasizing simple performance and low-cost applications, and it still has a certain position in the current MCU market value. Product development needs in the green age.
8-bit MCUs are mostly used in electric meters, motor controllers, electric toy machines, inverter air conditioners, pagers, fax machines, caller IDs (CallerID), telephone recorders, CRT monitors, keyboards, and USB.
For 16-bit MCUs, 16-bit operations, 16/24-bit addressing capabilities and frequencies of 24~100MHz are the mainstream specifications. Some 16-bit MCUs additionally provide 32-bit addition/subtraction/multiplication/division special instructions. Due to the emergence of 32bit MCU and the continuous price reduction and the low price advantage of 8bit MCU, which is simple, durable and cheap, the 16bit MCU market sandwiched in the middle is constantly being squeezed, becoming a product with a relatively low proportion of shipments.
16-bit MCUs are mostly used in mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders, etc.; 32-bit MCUs are mostly used in Modem, GPS, PDA, HPC, STB, Hub, Bridge, Router, workstation, ISDN telephone, Laser printers and color fax machines.
8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers are mainly used in the general control field, and generally do not use the operating system.
32-bit MCU is mostly used in Modem, GPS, PDA, HPC, STB, Hub, Bridge, Router, workstation, ISDN telephone, laser printer and color fax machine; 32-bit is used for complex processing such as network operation and multimedia processing. , generally use an embedded operating system.
32-bit MCUs occupy a large market share. Most of the operating frequencies are between 100 and 350MHz, with better execution performance and diverse application types.
But 32-bit MCU will increase the length of the program code of the same function by 30~40% compared with 8/16bit MCU due to the increase of operand and memory length, which leads to the embedded OTP/FlashROM memory capacity should not be too small, and the number of external pins of the chip The sharp increase further limits the cost reduction capability of 32bit MCUs.
With the improvement of technology, today's MCU chips are widely used. The antilock brake system, GPS navigation system, and engine intelligent electronic controller commonly used in automobiles all use MCU.
At present, automotive electronics has become the largest market for MCUs in the world, with an average of about 70 MCU chips per vehicle. The industrial control field is the second largest application market for MCU chips, and the number of industrial MCU chips used is growing continuously. In the field of consumer electronics, MCU chips are showing a trend of intelligent frequency conversion, and consumer electronics MCUs are also a rapidly rising field in the market.
