NorthGuy
Well-Known Member
Have anyone seen any year-by-year data on most popular MCUs in terms of number of people who use them (I mean developers, not end users who buy products with MCU inside)?
What is the overall trend in microcontroller? There are lots of big 32-bit microcontrollers - ARM-Cortex-M4, AVR32, PIC32. Are they replacing the old 8-bit microcontrollers the same way as 32-bit PCs drove 16-bit PCs to the extinction? Or are they filling a separate niche?
Microchip says their 8-bit PIC16F are the most popular. Is this because people are slow to migrate to PIC32? Or because these 32-bit MCUs are not really needed for smaller projects, and, at the same time, inferior to embedded computers capable of running Linux for bigger projects?
I noticed that there are lots of big 8-bit controllers with rather big capabilities? Manufacturers are still making lots of them. Are these just the dinosaurs of the past soon to be extinct and outcompeted by modern 32-bit processors? Or are they here to stay because they're perfectly good for the job and people actually prefer them?
What is the overall trend in microcontroller? There are lots of big 32-bit microcontrollers - ARM-Cortex-M4, AVR32, PIC32. Are they replacing the old 8-bit microcontrollers the same way as 32-bit PCs drove 16-bit PCs to the extinction? Or are they filling a separate niche?
Microchip says their 8-bit PIC16F are the most popular. Is this because people are slow to migrate to PIC32? Or because these 32-bit MCUs are not really needed for smaller projects, and, at the same time, inferior to embedded computers capable of running Linux for bigger projects?
I noticed that there are lots of big 8-bit controllers with rather big capabilities? Manufacturers are still making lots of them. Are these just the dinosaurs of the past soon to be extinct and outcompeted by modern 32-bit processors? Or are they here to stay because they're perfectly good for the job and people actually prefer them?