Many electrical appliances in our lives now use MCUs. Such as mobile phones, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, as well as medical equipment, intelligent voice equipment, energy-saving control, alarm control and so on. So what exactly does the microcontroller do in these appliances?
The single-chip microcomputer is the key to the actions of these electrical appliances, and it commands the operation of the hardware. For example: receiving the input signal of a button or key, and instructing the peripheral function circuit of the motor and LCD to operate according to the pre-programmed program.
So how is the MCU structured?
- Elements of a single chip microcomputer *
MCU is composed of CPU, memory, peripheral functions and other parts. If you compare a single-chip microcomputer to a human, then the CPU is responsible for thinking, the memory is responsible for memory, and the peripheral functions are equivalent to the visual sensory system and the nervous system that controls the movements of hands and feet.
Although we say that the CPU is equivalent to the human brain, it cannot think consciously and spontaneously like the human brain. The CPU can only read and execute the combination of instructions (programs) previously stored in the memory in sequence. Of course, the instructions executed by the CPU are not difficult commands such as "walking" and "speaking", but some very simple instructions, such as "reading data" from a certain place in the memory or "writing" some data into the memory. Somewhere, or do addition, multiplication, logical operations, etc. However, the combination of these simple instructions can achieve many complex functions.