Single-board microcontroller: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:31, 27 May 2020

Revision as of 01:49, 18 April 2021

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In March 1976, [[Intel]] announced a single-board computer product that integrated all of the support components required for their [[8080]] microprocessor, along with 1 [[kilobyte]] of RAM, 4 kilobytes of user-programmable ROM, and 48 lines of parallel digital I/O with line drivers. The board also offered expansion through a bus connector, but could be used without an expansion card cage when applications did not require additional hardware. Software development for this system was hosted on Intel's [[Intellec MDS]] microcomputer development system; this provided assembler and [[PL/M]] support, and permitted [[in-circuit emulation]] for debugging.<ref>[http://www.dvq.com/docs/brochures/intel_sbc_80_10.pdf Intel SBC 80/10 Single Board Computer brochure], 1976</ref>

Processors of this era required a number of support chips to be included outside of the processor. [[RAM]] and [[EPROM]] were separate, often requiring memory management or refresh circuitry for [[Dynamic random -access memory|dynamic memory]]. I/O processing might have been carried out by a single chip such as the [[Intel 8255|8255]], but frequently required several more chips.

A single-board microcontroller differs from a [[single-board computer]] in that it lacks the general-purpose user interface and mass storage interfaces that a more general-purpose computer would have. Compared to a [[microprocessor development board]], a microcontroller board would emphasize digital and analog control interconnections to some controlled system, whereas a development board might by have only a few or no discrete or analog input/output devices. The development board exists to showcase or train on some particular processor family and, therefore, internal implementation is more important than external function.

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== Single-chip microcontrollers ==

[[Image:KL Intel D8749.jpg|thumb|A [[Intel 8048|8048]]-family microcontroller with an on-board UV [[EPROM]], the [[8749]] ]]

[[Image:Pickit1 devboard.jpg|thumb|right|A development board for a [[PIC microcontroller|PIC]] family device ]]

Single-chip microcontrollers, such as the Intel [[Intel 8048|8748]], combined many of the features of previous boards into a single IC package. Single-chip microcontrollers integrate memory (both RAM and ROM) on-package and, therefore, do not need to expose the data and address [[Bus (computing)|bus]] through the pins of the IC package. These pins are then available for I/O lines. These changes also reduce the area required on the printed circuit board and simplify the design of the single-board microcontroller. Examples of single-chip microcontrollers include: