Microcontrollers for IoT
In this article, I’ll be explaining the most widely used microcontrollers for IoT and which suit your requirements. If you are already familiar with IoT, you can directly proceed to the Microcontrollers section.
What is IoT?
IoT, or the Internet of Things, are devices that consist of sensors, actuators and the capability to process and communicate the data sent or received over the internet. Therefore, IoT devices need to be equipped with microprocessors and networking interfaces. With the development of technology, these components and technologies are now available in a wide variety to choose from when developing an IoT solution. But we must make the selection according to the requirements such as processing power, power efficiency, form factor, pin layout, technologies etc. This article will help you identify the widely used microcontrollers you can use for your IoT projects accordingly.
Microcontrollers
If you are familiar with computers, you may know about microprocessors. In general, we call them CPU or Central Processing Units. A microprocessor mainly consists of a Control Unit, an Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) and some registers. Modern microprocessors are also equipped with cache memory to smooth data transfer between CPU and memory.
But microcontrollers are beyond microprocessors. Microcontrollers can be defined as a collection of one or more microprocessors, main memory, program memory, input/output peripherals etc. We can define a microcontroller as a System-On-Chip (SoC). As all of these components are contained collectively in a single chip, it is easier to handle in IoT development processes. However, microcontrollers’ collective attribute also ceases their possibility to tweak and upgrade their performances.
Most of the time, we see people misunderstand microcontrollers with development boards. The microcontroller is just a single component in a development board. Development boards are only used in entry-level prototyping.
Following are the widely used microcontrollers in the field of IoT. Each of them is different in its architecture, supported technologies, form factor etc.
- Atmel AVR
Atmel is the manufacturer of the Atmel AVR microcontroller family (In 2016, Atmel was acquired by Microchip Technology). These were introduced in 1996, and mainly there are three series of microcontrollers as follows.
- ATmega32 series
- ATmega16 series
- AVR128 series
These ATmega and AVR microcontrollers are known for their presence in popular development boards Arduino. Arduino Uno boards consist of ATmega 328p microcontrollers, while Arduino Mega 2560 boards consist of ATmega 2560 microcontrollers.
2. Microchip PIC
PIC (pronounced as “pick”; stands for Programmable Intelligent Computer) is a family of microcontrollers manufactured by Microchip Technology. PIC MCUs were firstly introduced in the 1970s. PIC MCUs were popular among developers before the rise of Arduino development boards. But still, PIC MCUs are heavily used in the large-scale production of IoT devices.
- PIC18 series (including PIC12 and PIC16)
- PIC32 series
These PIC microcontrollers were most popular with Microchip Curiosity Development Board and Ready-for Development boards.
3. Espressif ESP
ESP series microcontrollers are known for their Wi-Fi-enabled feature among IoT developers. ESPs are relatively new to the MCU market compared with the other MCUs. Below are the popular microcontroller series of ESP.
- ESP8266 series
- ESP32 series
ESP8266 is known for its presence on the NodeMCU development board. ESP32 series is the more developed successor of the ESP8266 series.
Out of all these microcontrollers, ESP series MCUs are more popular among IoT developers due to their Wi-Fi-enabled feature, which is not addressed in most other microcontrollers.
Microcontroller Development Boards
Microcontroller Development Boards, aka Single-board Microcontrollers, are Printed Circuit Boards that come with inbuilt microcontrollers. Other than the microcontroller, a power supply circuit, signal converters (Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog), system bus, serial ports (sometimes USB interface also) and I/O ports.
The most popular microcontroller boards are as follows. Rather than just microcontroller boards, Raspberry Pi and Arduino are considered IoT platforms, a standard where many IoT peripherals and their libraries are developed compatibly.
- Raspberry Pi — More suitable for heavy computational-oriented applications such as image processing. Built-in support for communication standards such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Available in various models according to requirements.
- Arduino — More suitable for lightweight compute applications such as sensor readings and minor actuators. No built-in support for communication standards. Available in various models according to requirements.
- Espressif — More suitable for lightweight compute applications that require Wi-Fi. Much energy efficient and small in size and supports the Arduino platform. Available in various models according to requirements.
Now you have an idea about what microcontrollers/development board suits your IoT solution. Feel free to clarify any doubts about this article’s facts by commenting below.
