which Microcontroller brand is used on industrial or comercial aplications? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: little_carlos
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 06:29:47 pm
content: hey, I was wondering, what brand of microcontroller is popular on the industrial or comercial field? ive never seen a pic or avr on any cellphone, videogame controller, or any comercial thing that ive taken apart, like microwave oven, they all seem to use own brand micros or something.are pic or avr used in these fields?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 06:32:13 pm
content: No idea, you use whatever you want. there are a lot of obscure manufacturers that you never think of as a hobbyist but are used in large volumes. A lot of things these days tend to be ARM and they can be made by a number of companies including atmel. You can buy am ARM for £1.60, but a less powerful AVR can cost over £5.00 so from a comercial point of view an ARM may get used because it cuts a few quid off the cost.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 07:24:33 pm
content: I've seen PICs before in commercial equipment.MCUs aren't always used. Sometimes FPGAs and ASICs are preferred. It depends on the application.

author: Yansi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 07:34:45 pm
content: All brands are being used commercially or in industry. I think no MCU brand is out there only for hobby use. The question needs more refining.

author: lukier
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 07:36:59 pm
content: Automotive, Industrial Control - at least some time ago - Freescale HC, 68k, ColdFire, PowerPC 5xx series etc, nowadays probably Renesas (AFAIR they are No 1 MCU manufacturer),Telecom (Core Network equipment, BTS) - big PowerPC (either AMCC or Freescale, nowadays moving to ARM), TI DSPs (e.g. TMS320TCI6618) and FPGAs, ASICs before,(Smart)phones - ARM mostly.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 08:47:36 pm
content: I've spent a decent amount of time ripping down boards for parts that come in at American Science and Surplus (mostly industrial) plus consumer stuff from Goodwill and I can say it is all over the map. I think I have seen everything except Renesas which I understand is used a lot for auto. I haven't ripped up an auto board yet. I haven't seen an ADI MCU either, though that isn't a super large part of their business. Zilog, Motorola (Freescale), Atmel, Microchip, ST, TI, seen all that. Guess I haven't seen SILabs yet either, though I have seen a number of their RF parts on some DirectTV gear I got from Goodwill. Motorola is very, very popular on the old industrial stuff I got from AS&S - PLCC 68K based chips with actual Motorola markings for PID controllers and the like. Zilog seems popular on POS printers (thermal type).

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 08:56:04 pm
content: A lot of times, the markings on the chip are erased or replaced with proprietary identification. Do a search. I think Renesas and TI are the volume leaders, overall.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 08:56:43 pm
content: When I tore down my old Logitech mouse an atmega328 showed up.Sure I didn't expect to find one of those in a Logitech. Yet it can perfectly do the job so why not?Some brands have a hobbyist reputation that makes them look less professional or industrial.You should ignore that, and objectively compare the specs.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 15, 2015, 09:01:30 pm
content: Some companies happen to offer better toold for the hobbyist and be easier to deal with. Many others don't need to as they already have huge industrial customers but they run on reputation alone and possibly lower price because they don't spend money developing tools or helping hobbyists. Of course the hobbyist friendly manufacturers would not be around without big industrial cusatomers either...... a couple of arduino boards don't keep atmel afloat. We use them in military kit.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 12:50:53 am
content: I've seen Renesas, SMSC, ENE, and Nuvoton for laptop embedded controllers.Silabs' 8051s are common in Chinese equipment.AVRs are a smaller marketshare, they are only very popular with hobbyists due to the Arduino crowd. PICs are definitely more common.Philips/NXP is another one that has little hobbyist presence but shows up commonly in commercial equipment.

author: cobbler
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 01:23:31 am
content: For off the shelf industrial control devices... Crestron ( designed and made in USA) controllers are great.https://www.crestron.com/products/line/3-series-control-systemsSiemens also is used...

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 02:09:43 am
content: TII had a link about this earlier. There is a company that collects these kinds of statistics and it was a surprise to me.Edit --> TI is the most used

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 02:17:46 am
content: I think this was the document :http://bd.eduweb.hhs.nl/es/2014-embedded-market-study-then-now-whats-next.pdfSee from page 47 onwards

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 02:58:51 am
content: Quote from: mariush on November 16, 2015, 02:17:46 amYes - I added the link tohttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/electronics-primers-course-material-and-books/so I do not lose it againthanks

author: briselec
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 05:26:01 am
content: I tend to teardown any faulty industrial equipment I replace. The Hitachi (now Renesas) H8 microcontroller seems to have been very popular at some stage.

author: RoadRunner
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 10:13:19 am
content: we are into railways stuff, we use NXP

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 10:14:50 am
content: Quote from: little_carlos on November 15, 2015, 06:29:47 pmWell I think it also depends on what kind of device it is. Some need powerful processing (e.g. automotive engine control units, which tend to use PowerPC/Power architecture chips), others need low cost, others need low power consumption. So there's a smattering of MCUs to meet every conceivable application. And then, as others have already said, there's a good chance they were custom-labeled, so you might be looking at a standard part and not realize it.

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2015, 12:41:55 pm
content: My first job, military stuff, early 90s:AMD 29xx bit slice processors80286My current job, telecom:For low level processors we went from in-house design (not 100% sure) to 6809, 68HC11, 68320 and then to PPC (Moto/Freescale)Many designs included ASICs or FPGAs, now much less.Higher level processors were proprietary design, then Alfa, now x86, but I would not say they count as embedded