Computers and Technology

Microcontroller vs Microprocessor: What is Difference Between them

Choosing the correct gadget to base your new design on might be difficult. The requirement to strike a good price-performance-power-consumption balance has a lot of ramifications. The urgent technological concerns for the design you are able to engage on will come first. However, deciding whether to use a microcontroller (MCU) or a microprocessor (MPU) as the foundation of a platform approach might have long-term ramifications. At this stage, the distinction between a microprocessor and a microcontroller becomes crucial.

What is Difference Between Microcontroller and Microprocessor

Typically, an MCU stores and executes its software in on-chip embedded Flash memory. By storing the software in this manner, the MCU can start up faster and execute code more rapidly. The only practical constraint to employing embedded memory is the limited amount of memory space available. The program memory on most Flash MCU devices on the market is limited to 2 Mbytes. Depending on the application, this could be a limiting factor.

Memory limits do not apply to MPUs in the same manner that they do to CPUs. External memory is used for program and data storage. Non-volatile memory, such as NAND or serial Flash, is usually used to store the software. This is loaded into an external DRAM at startup, and execution begins. This implies the MPU will take longer to boot up than an MCU, but the amount of DRAM and NVM you can attach to the CPU is in the hundreds of Mbytes, and even Gbytes in the case of NAND.

Another distinction is power. An adalm2000 MCU only requires one single voltage power rail because it has its own power supply. An MPU, on the other hand, requires many different voltage rails for the CPU, DDR, and other components. Additional power ICs/converters on the board are required by the developer.

Application Perspective

Some components tools of the design specification may influence device selection in specific ways from the standpoint of the application. Is the number of peripheral interface channels necessary, for example, more than an MCU can handle? Or does the marketing specification call for a user interface feature that an MCU won’t be able to provide because it lacks enough on-chip memory or the necessary performance?

When starting the first design, keep in mind that there will almost certainly be several product variants. In that circumstance, a platform-based design approach is quite likely to be selected. In order to support future feature improvements, additional “headroom” in terms of processing power and interface capabilities would be required.

Some measurement parameters

The processing performance that any given design may demand is a tough quality to estimate. These characteristics may be quantified using processing power, which is measured in Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS).

The difference between a microprocessor and a microcontroller is explained in the table below.

A microcontroller based on the ARM Cortex-M4 architecture, such as Atmel’s SAM4 MCU, is rated at 150 DMIPS. The SAMA5D3 from Atmel is an ARM Cortex-A5 application processor (MPU) that can offer up to 850 DMIPS. Examining the performance-hungry areas of the program is one technique to estimate the DMIPS necessary.

Running a full operating system (OS) for your application, such as Linux, Android, or Windows CE, would require at least 300–400 DMIPS. For many applications, a simple RTOS may suffice, and a 50 DMIPS allotment would be more than enough. Using an RTOS also has the advantage of requiring little memory space, with most kernels being only a few kB in size.

Applications

DMIPS permission must be reserved on top of any OS and other communication and control activities when running programs that are more number-crunching intensive. An MPU is more likely to be required if the application is numeric-based.

Regardless of the application’s goal, the user interface (UI) should be taken into account. We’ve grown accustomed to utilizing colorful and intuitive graphical user interfaces as customers. This technique of operator contact is increasingly being used in industrial applications. The operating environment, on the other hand, may impose restrictions on its use. A variety of things influence the user interface.

Is the processing overhead necessary, first and foremost? Because Qt is commonly used on top of Linux, an overhead of 80–100 DMIPS may be sufficient for a UI library like Qt. The second aspect has to do with the user interface’s complexity. Additional animations, effects, multimedia information, and modifications to the image to be presented necessitate more processing power and memory. And because these requirements increase with resolution, an MPU is more likely to be suitable for UI-centric applications.

An MCU, on the other hand, can handle a simpler UI with pseudo-static pictures on a lower resolution screen. Another advantage of the MPU is that it usually comes with a TFT LCD controller incorporated in it. This is a feature that only a few MCUs have. The TFT LCD controller, as well as a few other external driver components, must be installed from the outside. While this is achievable with an MCU, the developer must consider the entire BOM.

Connectivity Standpoint

Most MCU and MPU devices are available with all of the major popular peripheral interfaces in terms of connection. MPUs are the only ones with high-speed communication peripherals such HS USB 2.0, multiple 10/100 Ethernet ports, or a Gigabit Ethernet port. They can manage and analyze massive volumes of data more efficiently. A crucial consideration is whether there are enough adequate channels and capacity to accommodate the data load.

The influence of third-party stacks on code space should be investigated depending on the communication protocols employed. An MPU-based architecture will be required for applications that require high-speed communication, especially when leveraging OS-based stacks.

In terms of connectivity, most MCU and MPU devices support all of the primary popular peripheral interfaces. High-speed communication peripherals such as HS USB 2.0, multiple 10/100 Ethernet ports, or a Gigabit Ethernet port are only available on MPUs. They are better at managing and analyzing large amounts of data. The availability of enough channels and capacity to support the data load is a critical factor.

Depending on the communication protocols used, the impact of third-party stacks on code space should be evaluated. For applications that demand high-speed communication, an MPU-based architecture will be necessary, especially when using OS-based stacks.

Power Consumption

Finally, power usage should be considered. While MPUs offer low-power modes, they are not as many or as low-power as those found on ordinary MCUs. Because the external hardware that supports an MPU is a factor, moving an MPU into a low-power mode may be slightly more difficult.

Furthermore, the actual consumption of an MCU is orders of magnitude lower than that of an MPU. You can contemplate a factor of 10 to 100 in low-power mode, for example, with SRAM and register retention. This is directly proportional to the amount of RAM and processing power required by an operating system to restart function immediately.

Conclusion

In general, MCUs are employed in cost-effective systems that need strict BOM control and power savings. Larger numbers of MPUs are used in applications with a lot of functionality and great performance. MCUs are increasingly used in ultra-low-power applications such as remote controls, consumer electronics, and smart meters, where the design emphasis is on battery life and little or minimal UI interaction.

They’re also employed in situations when deterministic behavior is required. MPUs are excellent for industrial and consumer applications that use an operating system. These might be computationally demanding and need many high-speed connections or a complex user interface.

Next Post: Introduction of System on Chips(SoCs)

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harpersophia

I am Harper Sophia, working in a company Utmel, which is the one of the best world Electronic Component distributors with over 100,000 different kinds of electronic components.

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