A Guide to Making the Right Microcontroller Choice
1 min read
Summary
Starting a microcontroller project can prove difficult given the plethora of options available to design engineers, from familiarising themselves with the necessary tools to the breadth of microcontrollers available.
However, according to an article from Substack contributor lcamtuf, breaking down the process into three categories –simple process control, computationally intensive tasks, and IoT products – can make the decision-making process easier.
His recommended microcontrollers for simple process control include the PIC 18 family, MSP 430, and the arduino nano; for computationally intensive tasks, he suggests STM32, endymitsu E1 SAM, and ATmel AVR; and for IoT tasks, the ESP32, STM32, and Raspberry Pi.
Meanwhile, flexibleisable dev boards such as the RPi and the esp32 can be adapted for a variety of uses cases, including when wireless connectivity is required, the author notes.
However, Hackaday observers have pointed out that the author’s recommendations for 8-bit MCUs are questionable, with some faster 32-bit chips lacking consideration.
