Group: srm401-1

Microcontroller
During the 1980s and 1990s, Intel's 8051 microcontrollers were widely used. The 8051 microcontrollers were commonly used in embedded systems at the time. Later, the embedded sector saw significant advancement in microcontrollers, thanks to numerous producers.

In addition to cellphones, audio accessories, video game peripherals, and advanced medical gadgets, the PIC microcontroller is employed in various new applications. A microchip is promoting the PIC16 and PIC18 families.

The performance, power efficiency, and adaptability of AVR microcontrollers are unmatched. Because of this, they can be used in a wide range of embedded system designs. Microchip's AVR microcontroller lineup includes the AVR DB, AVR DA, ATmega4809, and ATtiny1607.

NXP semiconductors produce ARM-based microcontrollers for automotive purposes, such as the S32K, EA microcontroller series, and MAC57Dxxx Microcontrollers. Industrial and automotive applications benefit from the real-time control and high-precision analogue integration provided by Texas Instruments' ARM-based MCUs, C2000 Real-time MCUs, and MSP430 MCUs.

Digital Signal Processor
Digital signal processors (DSPs) are specially built for communication applications, both audio and video. Compared to the general-purpose embedded processor, these are either 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit microprocessors.

The usage of Digital signal processors (DSPs) have grown tremendously in the last decade, as they are deployed in everything from smartphones to high-tech scientific equipment. Parallelism and reduced power dissipation are the hallmarks of modern digital signal processing (DSP) architectures.

Some of the activities performed by digital signal processors include convolution, sum of products (SOP) calculation, Discrete Fourier transform, Fast Fourier transform, Finite/Infinite Impulse Response (FIR/IIR), etc.

NXP Semiconductors has released two new families of digital signal processors: DSP56Fxx and MSC8xx. Processing for audio/video receivers (AV), home theatres and surround sound decoders, remote stereo systems, and digital TV audio is the primary focus of their processors.

For example, ARM has created DSP processors such as the ARM cortex-A, the ARM Cortex-R, and the ARM Cortex-M with enhanced DSP instructions to improve arithmetic execution performance. Their processors provide high-quality signal processing.

Texas Instruments' programmable DSPs are ideal for embedded real-time signal processing applications, such as audio and aerospace/defence. They range from low-power, single-core processors to high-performance, multi-core DSPs and ARM SoCs. ' A couple of their most popular DSPs include TMS320C6748, TMS320C6657, and TMS320C6678.

Other leading DSP processor makers include ST Microelectronics, Analog Devices, Cirrus Logic, and Infineon Technologies.

An embedded system is created to carry out one or a few specific duties, frequently under real-time computing limitations. Here, we notice the primary difference between an embedded system and VLSI.

In an embedded system, single-purpose embedded processors provide only one specific task, as its name implies. They are entirely self-contained and only communicate with the host CPU when information is required. One of the most critical components is a coprocessor that handles floating-point computations, network and graphics processing units, pixel processors, and other components.

As opposed to this, very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the technique of building integrated circuits by fusing hundreds of transistor-based circuits onto a single chip. VLSI systems covers a wide range of academic fields, such as semiconductor devices and processing, integrated electronic circuits, etc.