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what is the difference between different microcontrollers?

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Hi all,

can any one tell me the difference between different microcontrollers (89c51/52, AVR, PIC, ARM/LPC) and their advantages and disadvantages one over the other? for what specific applications a microcontroller is preferred over the others?
i am asking as i am new to professional field and dont have lot of experience.

Regards
 
That is a lot of information to ask for. To answer it on would need to cover the processor architecture, peripherals, and historical information.

I have found the tool chains (IDE, compiler, simulator and programmers) to be as much of a factor as the processor chip.

Can you ask a few less more specif questions ?
 
more specifically is..............

can every project be designed using only one microcontroller? like i am currently working on 89c51 ,,, so is it enough for all microcontroller based projects?

what things should i consider before choosing a microcontroller for a project?
 
The main things I would consider when choosing a microcontroller:

Peripherals - Do you need a PWM, A/D converter, and SPI? Perhaps USB, PMP and USART? Then make sure your microcontroller has it.
Memory - Do you need a 192KB frame buffer for an LCD? Then don't choose a micro with 2KB RAM.
Speed - Do you want to perform thousands of floating point calculations per second? Then choose a fast micro.
Toolchain - (as mentioned by 3v0) There's no use using AVR's if you are used to MPLAB and can find a suitable PIC.

In summing up, microcontrollers are very versatile little things and often you will find that many different types of microcontrollers can do the same job. Is it enough for all microcontroller projects? Well that depends on what your particular project requires.
 
Memory - Do you need a 192KB frame buffer for an LCD? Then don't choose a micro with 2KB RAM.

Thank you very much for such a useful info Gobbledok. please Explain your above statment about memory used for LCD as i am currently working on 89c52 interfaced with 16x2 LCM (jd 162a). what is the use of external memory for that?
 
I mean if you are working with a full colour TFT LCD. You will be fine with a character LCD.

Sometimes you may want to keep a certain area of the screen in RAM which would require lots of memory. The advantages are that you can manipulate it (for example to fade a screen in/out) easier and quicker and you can write to the screen a lot quicker.
 
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Why is AVR more difficult for beginners than PIC? AFAIK it has simpler instruction set and easier RAM access than PIC..
 
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vj86's table bothers me

It assumes ASM level programming.

Select a processor based on MIPs rather the the crystal freq and the cycles pre instructions is immaterial. A richer instruction set requires fewer instructions the a weak instruction set.

Microchip offers a wide range of PICs in the 10F,12F,16F,18F,24F,dsPIC, and the MIPS core 32 bit systems. To make a comparison saying only PIC is misleading. I am sure similar problems exist with the other vendors offerings.

Microchip has a free IDE and lite version of the compilers for the entire product range.

Use what makes you happy :)
 
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vj86's table bothers me

Yes, it's painfully oversimplified to the point of being outright incorrect.

In other news, I actually bought a PICKIT3 after not touching PICs in 10 years. I need a 5v chip and none of my Z8's, ARM's or MSP430's will do 5v.
 
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