Characteristics of a Microcontroller

A Microcontroller is a Integrated Circuit (IC) chip that can execute programs to control other devices. A Microcontroller has RAM, ROM and Input Output (IO) ports.

Characteristics of a microcontroller:

1. It is a small computer. It has processor and some other components.
2. Used in automatically controlled devices.
3. Used in Embedded systems.
4. It has less computational capacity than microprocessor. So it is used for simpler tasks only.
5. Do not have math coprocessors.
6. Perform tasks – fetch, decode and execute.
7. It has memory, both RAM and ROM with some other I/O devices too.
8. Power consumption is less in microcontroller.
9. Optimize interrupt latency.
10. Bit manipulation is powerful.
11. Used to handle real time tasks and they are single programmed, self-sufficient and task oriented.