Microcontroller (MCU)

A microcontroller or MCU (microcontroller unit) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip that contains a CPU (or several cores) along with flash memory and RAM. It is an example of a system-on-a-chip (SoC). These computers are designed for use in embedded systems, while the term microprocessors usually denotes an application for PCs or similar.

Communications between a microcontroller and attached peripherals or other components can occur in the form of direct memory addressing or parallel or serial communication using protocols such as include I²C, SPI, Ethernet, or USB.