The situation we find ourselves today in the field of microcontrollers had its beginnings 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.
A microcontroller differs from a microprocessor in many ways. The first and most important difference is its functionality. 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.
Book LinK:
http://www.mikroe.com/en/books/picmcubook/
PIC Microcontrollers by Milan Verle 2008-mikroElektronika
Labels: Electronics