Most popular Micro-controllers?

[jack23]

Hello all,

This question is directed more towards those in this forum who are currently or have been in the past in the embedded systems industry, or those who are knowledgable in it.

Question: From either the 8051 or PIC family of micro-controllers, which one is the most widely used in industry??

 

[donniedj]

The one that works.

Remember Hitler and Microsoft? Popularity doen't mean anything and its degree is directly proportional to the strenght of its mass hypnosis

 

[3v0]

Question: From either the 8051 or PIC family of micro-controllers, which one is the most widely used in industry??

Why do you ask ?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hello all,

This question is directed more towards those in this forum who are currently or have been in the past in the embedded systems industry, or those who are knowledgable in it.

Question: From either the 8051 or PIC family of micro-controllers, which one is the most widely used in industry??

As I understand it MicroChip is the most successful SINGLE manufacturer, but 8051's are made my numerous manufacturers, and the total number of 8051's is higher than PIC's (simply because of the multiple manufacturers).

 

[HarveyH42]

It's not really a fair to compare. Kind of depends on where it's being used. 8051 is popular in car manufacturing industry, and likely similar applications. For other home consumer goods you can find PICs and AVR chips. On the web, must admit that PIC seems to be the most popular and widely used.

 

[jack23]

Why do you ask ?

I ask because when I was in college, I learned about embedded systems with particular focus on the now mature Motorola 68HC11 microcontroller. When I take a look at industry, I see alot of companies using either the 8051 or PICs in their embedded systems. Not once have I seen the HC11.

So I am taking it upon myself to learn the 8051 or PIC, and asked this question to kinda see which one I should learn ( or maybe both).

By the way, does anyone know if the HC11 is used anymore?

 

[jack23]

It's not really a fair to compare. Kind of depends on where it's being used. 8051 is popular in car manufacturing industry, and likely similar applications. For other home consumer goods you can find PICs and AVR chips. On the web, must admit that PIC seems to be the most popular and widely used.

Yeah that is what I have noticed. The PIC does seem to be extremely popular.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I ask because when I was in college, I learned about embedded systems with particular focus on the now mature Motorola 68HC11 microcontroller. When I take a look at industry, I see alot of companies using either the 8051 or PICs in their embedded systems. Not once have I seen the HC11.

Colleges tend to teach using old obselete equipment, the lecturers are familiar with it, and they probably have all the gear they need. Moving to a more modern device would mean buying new equipment (which is difficult for a college to fund), and for the lecturers to get off their bums and learn something new (probably a complete impossibility?)

There's an old saying, which I'm sure you've all heard - "those who can do, those who can't teach" - I've never had reason to suspect that isn't completely true!.

 

[HarveyH42]

I think colleges realize that in some fields, even if they were to keep up with the devices, mostly they would be out-dated by the time the student graduated. Unless it's an advanced course, would think pretty much any micro would be good enough to start out on. And of course it wouldn't be practical to try and teach every availiable device, so how likely will the students be to get jobs using the same parts they learned with anyway?

And no matter what you learn in school, your employer usually wants things done a certain way, so there will be some re-training involved.

 

[jack23]

I guess its a matter of learning the basics first, then if the student desires, he/she can move on to learn the more modern devices. This would be alot easier since the student already has a basic knowledge of the functionality/hardware architecture etc. of the controller.

For example, I know colleges and universities still require EE students to take a course or two on the 8088/86 IBM processors. Although these processors are ancient in today's standards, they are the basis for learning the newest and latest. Comments?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

For example, I know colleges and universities still require EE students to take a course or two on the 8088/86 IBM processors. Although these processors are ancient in today's standards, they are the basis for learning the newest and latest. Comments?

Like I said above, old technology that the lecturers understand (or at least can lecture on), and using equipment the college already possesses.

Also, obviously, learning ANY micro-processor gives you an insight in to the techniques involved. Not to mention these processors are still at the root of an Intel based PC.

Learning ANY micro-controller or micro-processor is valuable, but it would obviously be more applicable to use something that at least has some pretention to being current?.

 

[kchriste]

focus on the now mature Motorola 68HC11 microcontroller. When I take a look at industry, I see alot of companies using either the 8051 or PICs in their embedded systems. Not once have I seen the HC11.

There are not many things that use the HC11 anymore, though Motorola did use the HC11 in a lot of its 2way radios once. The original 8051 came out in the 1980's so is also "old" in a sense...

For example, I know colleges and universities still require EE students to take a course or two on the 8088/86 IBM processors. Although these processors are ancient in today's standards, they are the basis for learning the newest and latest. Comments?

Today you'll see the CMOS version of 80186/286/386/486's used in various pieces of equipment like test gear such as storage oscilloscopes etc. I've also seen them used in automotive computers (ECU's)... The reason for this is the shear number of compiler's, programmers, code fragments, etc that are already attuned to the 8088 family tree....

 

[uCTechnoGeek]

Comparing apples to oranges???

No offense to anyone, but you are comparing apples to oranges.

The HC11 was replaced with the newer technology HCS08 and HCS12 a long time ago.

In most cases Freescale blows away both Microchip and 8051 from a technology stand point. Microchip usually wins on price, but that's because there parts are 90's technology.

Yes, there is a lot of code out there for both Microchip and the 8051, but unless you are still programming in assembly, C is easy to port to any micro.

 

[3v0]

Time to market and meeting schedules is very important.

If processor is powerful enough with the right do-dads it is good enough.

The real difference is in the tool chain. Get the best you can afford because they will help you keep on schedule.

 

[Mike - K8LH]

No offense to anyone, but you are comparing apples to oranges.

The HC11 was replaced with the newer technology HCS08 and HCS12 a long time ago.

In most cases Freescale blows away both Microchip and 8051 from a technology stand point. Microchip usually wins on price, but that's because there parts are 90's technology.

Yes, there is a lot of code out there for both Microchip and the 8051, but unless you are still programming in assembly, C is easy to port to any micro.

I started out with 68HC11FN1 with BUFALLO monitor and then 68HC12 (with a BDM for programming). They're nice. Lots of capability (and memory). Relatively intuitive (coming from 6502 background).

The PIC is simpler, easier to program, very capable, with gobs of info' and resources around to help you get started. No "availability" problems compared to some of the FreeScale (Motorola) products. Very small "tight" code.

Language of choice (in order of preference); Assembly, C, BASIC

My 2 cents. Mike

 

[dipmicro]

It's not really a core that matters in most cases but peripherals. Most embedded veterans can start being productive on new micro in a day, they all do pretty much the same things, ADD, SUB, jump, branch etc.

But what really matters is if you have A/D, D/A, SPI, I2C, USART, PWM, timers/counters, CAN, USB, Ethernet etc. Microchip blows others away, because instead of giving you a micro for everything, you can choose a micro that has only peripherals that you need for half price. And you can drive LED directly, most micros need a transistor for that.

Of course, sometimes the speed is important and that is the core function. But if one gets to squezing last nanosecond out of the micro, they should have started looking at faster models long time ago.

8051, PIC, Freescale ... is irrelevant. Toolchain availability and quality and peripheral availability is what matters.


PIC has many peripherals available, many sub-level quality but price friendly toolchains and inexpensive.

8051 has good quality toolchains and many vendors who licensed the core from Intel.

Both of them are good.