Difference between ARM and other Microcontrollers

This article shows the difference between different microcontrollers available today and used nowadays most, here we classify different microcontroller according to their feature and we will show you how they are different from each other. Then we compare individual microcontroller according to your application need and tell you which one is better for that particular application.

To know what is 8051, AVR, PIC, ARM, MSP430, click on individuals which will drive you to its introduction page.

	ARM	8051	AVR	PIC	MSP430
Bus Width	32-bit mostly also available in 64-bit	8-bit for standard core	8/32-bit	8/16/32-bit	16-bit
Interface types	UART, USART, LIN, I2C, SPI, CAN, USB, Ethernet, I2S, DSP, SAI (serial audio interface), IrDA	UART, USART, SPI, I2C	UART, USART, SPI, I2C, (special purpose AVR support CAN, USB, Ethernet)	PCI, UART, USART, LIN,CAN, Ethernet, SPI, I2S	UART, USART, LIN, I2C, SPI, I2S, IrDA
Speed	1 clock / instruction cycle	12 clock / instruction cycle	1 clock / instruction cycle	4 clock / instruction cycle	6 clock / instruction cycle
Memory	Flash, SDRAM, EEPROM	ROM, SRAM, FLASH	Flash, SRAM, EEPROM	SRAM, FLASH	SRAM, FLASH
ISA	RISC	CISC	RISC	Some feature of RISC	Some feature of RISC
Memory Architecture	Modified Harvard architecture	Von Neumann architecture	Modified Harvard architecture	Harvard architecture	Von Neumann architecture
Power Consumption	Low	Average	Low	Low	Ultra Low
Families	ARMv4,5,6,7 and Cortex series	8051 variants	Tiny, Atmega, Xmega, special purpose AVR,	PIC16, PIC17, PIC18, PIC24, PIC32	MSP430X,MSP430FR57xx, MSP430x1xx to MSP430x6xx series
Community Support	Vast	Vast	Very Good	Very Good	Average
Vendors	Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, and TI, etc.	NXP, Atmel, Silicon Labs, Dallas, Cyprus, infineon, etc	Atmel	Microchip	TI
Cost (as compared to feature provided)	Low	Very Low	Average	Average	Average
Other features	High speed operation	Known for its Standard	Cheap, effective	Cheap	Known for Ultra low power operation
Popular microcontrollers	LPC2148, ARM Cortex-M0 to ARM Cortex-M0, etc	AT89C51, P89v51,etc	Atmega8,16,32, Arduino Community	PIC18fXX8, PIC16f88X, PIC32MXXX	MSP430G2553, MSP430 launchpad.

This data is based on certain date, Average of our experience with them, which is continuously evolved and microcontroller vendors are come up with new features time by time.

Which one is better ?

There is always pros and cons. We can not say that this is bad or good. Its up to you that which one is better for your application, so here are some example

• ARM - if your application need real time control, fast processing, high end communication protocol and many other function like ADC,PWM along with large memory requirement, then ARM the "Mighty Monster" will best fit for your application.

• 8051 - if your application need less function with cheap project budget and faithful reliable product choose 8051, as per my personal experience, 8051 is universal solution where cheap budget project and reliable product with less functionality. I have used 8051 cored product in many numbers of application starting from my final year college project to high end machine as supporting controller.

• AVR - I have seen this controller in mostly robotics and automobile industries because of its wide community support and simplicity.

• PIC - Used in Industrial application of AC, TV, refrigerator and many more cheap project. I was always hater of PIC controllers cause of its paid system development kit and less community support.

• MSP430 - What if I am say your whole project will going to run on single AA battery for 5 years or your microcontroller can run even at 0.9V supply voltage. You might not believe, but its possible with MSP430, TI's best product

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