Characteristics of a microprocessor:
- It assimilates the functions of a CPU on to a single IC.
- It can perform some basic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and some logical operations using its Arithmetic and Logical Unit (ALU).
- Move data from one location to another.
- It has a program counter that can store the addresses of next instruction.
- Computational capacity is very high.
- Perform the instruction cycle like as fetch, decode and execute repeatedly.
- To design a system with microprocessor, it needs to connect with RAM, ROM, I/O devices etc.
- Building cost is high.
- Power consumption and dissipation is high.
- The clock frequency is very high.
- Instruction throughput is given higher priority than interrupt latency.
- Have few bit manipulation instructions.
- Microprocessors is not used in real time systems.