A microcontroller (abbreviated MCU or µC) is a computer system on a chip that does a job. It contains an integrated processor, memory (a small amount of RAM, program memory, or both), and programmable input/output peripherals, which are used to interact with things connected to the chip A microcontroller is different than a microprocessor which only contains a CPU (the kind used in a Personal Computer ).
First released in 1971 by the Intel company, microcontrollers began to become popular in their first few years. The extremely useful Intel 8008 microprocessor was then released, but it was still impractical because of high cost for each chip. These first microcontrollers combined different types of computer memory on one unit. After people began to see how useful they were, micro controllers were constantly being upgraded, with people trying to find new ways to make them better. Cost was reduced over time and by the early 2000s, micro controllers were widely used across the world.

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