微控制器在汽车和消费类市场上得到了广泛的应用,其主要优势在于能够以相对较低的成本实现系统高度集成。然而,这类产品也有潜在的成本问题。例如,如果元件功能不切合要求,就必须采用外部逻辑、软件或其他集成器件来进行扩展。此外,随着最终市场需求的迅速变化,微控制器会很快过时。许多具有一定数量专用接口的特殊功能微控制器在经过短期试用后,并不能完全满足市场需求,系统供应商不得不重新设计硬件和软件,甚至在某些情况下对处理器内核进行改动。 Microcontrollers are widely used in the automotive and consumer markets and their major strength is the ability to achieve high system integration at a relatively low cost. However, such products also have potential cost issues. For example, if the component’s functionality does not meet the requirements, it must be extended with external logic, software, or other integrated components. In addition, microcontrollers quickly become obsolete as demand in the final market changes rapidly. Many special-purpose microcontrollers with a limited number of specialized interfaces do not fully meet the market requirements after a short trial period, and system vendors have had to redesign the hardware and software and even the processor core in some cases.