Introduction to Microprocessors.
The situation we find ourselves today in the field of microcontrollers had its Progress in the development of technology of integrated circuits. This development has enabled us to store hundreds of thousands of transistors into one chip. That was a precondition for the manufacture of microprocessors. The first computers were made by adding external peripherals such as memory, input/output lines, timers and others to it. Further increasing of package density resulted in creating an integrated circuit which contained both processor and peripherals. That is how the first chip containing a microcomputer later known as a microcontroller has developed.
From here began development
A microcontroller differs from a microprocessor in many ways. The first and most important difference is its The way it works. In order that the microprocessor may be used, other components such as memory must be added to it. Even though the microprocessors are considered to be powerful computing machines, their weak point is that they are not adjusted to communicating to peripheral equipment.
Simply, In order to communicate with peripheral environment, the microprocessor must use specialized circuits added as external chips. In short microprocessors are the pure heart of the computers. This is how it was in the beginning and remains the same today.
From another perspective, the microcontroller is designed to be all of that in one. No other specialized external components are needed for its application because all necessary circuits which otherwise belong to peripherals are already built into it. It saves the time and space needed to design a device.