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Many beginners struggle to understand the differences between Arduino, ARM, Raspberry Pi, and microcontrollers. All four belong to the realm of embedded technology, which encompasses a vast knowledge system.
In fact, comparing these four is inherently misguided. Today, I will clarify these four technical terms!
Microcontrollers come in many brands and models, and Arduino is one type of microcontroller. It is a convenient, flexible, and easy-to-use open-source electronic prototyping platform that includes hardware (various models of Arduino boards) and software (Arduino IDE).
In simple terms:
Arduino is a development tool software and method, not a chip or a circuit board. It supports the development of many types of processor chips, with numerous libraries available. The software and hardware development approach is notably modular, making application development simple, convenient, and quick.
The Arduino SDK has many ready-to-use library functions for hardware control. This allows those without a strong microcontroller foundation to use Arduino to create what they want.
Developers can easily utilize the functions of the AVR chip by calling library functions, and implement various hardware controls through different programs, such as controlling lights, relays, motors, and buzzers, without needing to consult the chip’s datasheet for register configuration.
Although using Arduino for electronic product development is highly efficient, actual products rarely use it due to specific requirements regarding cost, size, performance, and power consumption.
Arduino is generally used to learn and improve C language skills; through this platform, you can quickly understand how C language controls hardware. Therefore, for those pursuing Linux software development, starting with Arduino is quite suitable.
ARM itself is a British company (Advanced RISC Machines), and ARM is also a type of chip core technology. ARM series processors are 32-bit or 64-bit reduced instruction set processors, which are chips, not software, and are very popular chips.
Microcontrollers typically have a core, such as the 51 core designed by Intel, primarily targeting simpler electronic products for control and computation.
There are also ARM cores, mainly targeting more complex electronic products for computation and control.
The AVR microcontroller used in Arduino is positioned between these two, being more powerful than the 51 core but weaker than the ARM core.
A pure core cannot be directly applied in products without secondary development; thus, ARM typically sells this core technology to semiconductor companies for further design.
Many companies, such as Samsung and Apple, purchase licenses from ARM to develop their unique microcontrollers (MCUs) and central processing units (CPUs).
The Raspberry Pi is developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charity registered in the UK, with Eben Upton as the project leader. In March 2012, Eben Epton of the University of Cambridge officially released the world’s smallest desktop computer, also known as a credit card-sized computer, which has all the basic functions of a computer. This is the Raspberry Pi board.
The Raspberry Pi is somewhat similar to Arduino; it is not a specific chip but an integrated circuit board.
This means that most of the components found inside your computer case are integrated into a single circuit board, making it a microcomputer that connects to a monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc., and is hardly different from your computer, except for the operating system, which is based on Linux.
The Raspberry Pi is significantly more powerful than Arduino, as it uses an ARM core processor and can function as a mini-computer when connected to a mouse and keyboard.
However, while most computers run Windows, the Raspberry Pi primarily runs Linux.
Many who wish to learn Linux or pursue pure software development in embedded systems often use the Raspberry Pi platform for their studies.
A microcontroller (Microcontroller) is a type of integrated circuit chip that employs very large scale integration technology to combine a central processing unit (CPU) with data processing capabilities, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), various I/O ports, an interrupt system, timers/counters, etc., potentially including display driver circuits, pulse-width modulation circuits, analog multiplexers, A/D converters, etc., into a small and complete microcomputer system on a silicon chip, widely used in industrial control. Since the 1980s, microcontrollers have evolved from 4-bit and 8-bit designs to today’s 300M high-speed microcontrollers.
Microcontrollers require secondary circuit and program development to realize a complete electronic product function. There are several job roles in this field: Microcontroller Engineer, STM32 Engineer, Embedded Engineer.
The knowledge system to learn is also broader, with three foundational areas: basic circuits, C language, and microcontrollers (51, STM32).
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