Getting Started with Nuvoton 8-bit Microcontrollers – Coding Part 1
Tag Archives: 8-bit Microcontroller
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Getting Started with Nuvoton 8-bit Microcontrollers
Many of us who are involved in the embedded system industry like 8-bit microcontrollers. They are cheap, easy to use and solve most of the common automation problems. 32-bit micros are in that contrast expensive and are mainly intended for advance-level works that cannot be solved with 8-bit micros. Thus, 32-bit micros are not much demanding as the 8-bit ones. In most places, 8051s, AVRs and PICs are the most used 8-bit micros. The popular Arduino platform is mainly based on 8-bit AVR micros. However, these are not the only 8-bit micros of the whole embedded world. Nuvoton – a Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer, is one such company that has its own flavour of 8-bit and 32-bit micros. The 8-bit micros from Nuvoton are based on the popular 8051 architectures. In this series of articles, we will be discovering Nuvoton N76E003 1T-8051-based microcontroller.
STM8 Microcontrollers – the Final Chapters
Continuing the STM8 Expedition
This post is the continuation of the first post on STM8 microcontrollers here.
Starting STM8 Microcontrollers
STM8 microcontrollers are 8-bit general purpose microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics (STM). STM is famous mainly for its line of 32-bit ARM Cortex microcontrollers – the STM32s. STM8 microcontrollers are rarely discussed in that context. However, STM8 MCUs are robust and most importantly they come packed with lots of hardware features. Except for the ARM core, 32-bit architecture, performance and some minor differences, STM8s have many peripheral similarities with STM32s. In my opinion, STM8s are equally or sometimes more matched than the popular PICs and AVRs in all areas. Unlike PICs and AVRs however, I have seen STM8s mostly in various SMD packages. Only a handful of STM8 chips are available in Plastic Dual-Inline Package (PDIP)/through-hole packages. I think it is a big reason for which most small industries and hobbyists don’t play with them as much as with other 8-bit families. People like to setup their test projects in breadboards, trial PCBs or strip-boards first, prototype and then develop for production. To cope with this issue, STM has provided several affordable STM8 Discovery (Disco) boards to get started with. Besides there are many cheap STM8 breakout-boards from China.
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