HOME       UP       PREV       NEXT (Switch/LED Interfacing)  

A Basic Micro-Controller

A microcontroller has all of the system parts on one piece of silicon. First introduced in 1979-85 (e.g. »Intel 80C51).

Such a microcontroller has an internal D8/A16 architecture and is used in things like a door lock, mouse or smartcard.

Many smartcards today contain a microcontroller that runs a cut-down, integer only, Java VM.


13: (C) 2008-17, DJ Greaves, University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory.