A computer chip designed for control-oriented applications

• A computer chip designed for control-oriented applications

• Unlike ordinary microprocessors, microcontrollers have built-in features that make them operate almost independent of additional circuitry

• This is possible because microcontrollers contain things like

• memory (ROM, EPROM, RAM, etc)
• input and output ports
• timers
• serial and parallel communication capability
• analog-to-digital converters