Are Microcontrollers the Future of Electronics?

 

Freescale (NXP) Kinetis KL25Z General Purpose Microcontroller

Microcontrollers. As electronics students, you either love them or hate them. But there's no denying that microcontrollers are literally everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. You might not see them directly, but they are hiding in your smartphones and smartwatches, your microwave, and even your washing machine. Each serving various purposes. The fact that microcontrollers can handle tasks efficiently with very little power and minimum damage to your budget makes them ridiculously ubiquitous (oh look I learned a new word). 

For those of you that are unfamiliar with microcontrollers, here's a quick microcontroller 101 for you. If you already know what they are, you may skip the following paragraph: 

Microcontrollers, sometimes MCUs (MicroController Units), are basically a tiny computer in one single chip. You can program it to do specific things. For example, in a microwave, it listens to the buttons you press, decides how long to cook your food, and tells the microwave to start heating. They are cheap, energy-efficient, and fairly straightforward to learn and code (unless you're working with the more advanced models with special functionality). But nonetheless, they are designed to run a specific task efficiently, where regular general-purpose processors (Your Intel Cores and AMD Ryzens) are deemed way too over-qualified. 

The specifications for the first Apple Macintosh computer

Traditionally, no matter if it's a desktop or a laptop computer, includes a CPU and a GPU (sometimes integrated with the CPU) (e.g. Intel Core i7), Memory (RAMs and ROMs), and input/output capabilities (for keyboards, mouse, monitors, and speakers). Your smartphones, however, are a bit different. They run on what is known as a SoC (System on a Chip, e.g. Qualcomm Snapdragon, Apple silicon). It typically includes everything mentioned above, but also in one single chip. Just like microcontrollers. The only difference is that SoCs are beefier and have stronger processing power compared to microcontrollers, hence capable of running bigger and more complex software, like operating systems such as Android and iOS. (There is more stuff in a computer, of course. I'm just simplifying things to make my point and avoid making this post way too technical.)

In fact, newer models of the Apple Mac series computers are based on SoCs, instead of a traditional Intel processor. Now, I'm sure you know where I'm getting with this: Apple's shift in Macs have highlighted a potential possibility where a single integrated, efficient silicon chip, can be the heart of future electronic devices. Today, microcontrollers are not designed for general-purpose processing like SoCs, they can't run an operating system such as Android or iOS, but only specialised tasks where efficiency, reliability, and low power consumption is more important than raw processing power. However, newer models of microcontrollers have higher and higher processing speed, often include GPUs, Wi-fi & Bluetooth (ESP32) and even AI-acceleration capabilities (STM32 N6 Series). They don't quite match the power and capabilities of a SoC just yet, but with rapid research and development currently ongoing, it's possible that microcontrollers could potentially replace SoCs and become the heart of the next generation electronic devices. Ideally inheriting its power-efficiency, cost-friendliness, and reliability. 

Atmel (Microchip) ATmega328P Microcontroller on the popular Arduino development board

Oh wait! But making a microcontroller as strong as an SoC risks turning it into an SoC itself! They might end up with the same or similar complexity, power draw, and cost! If that's what you're wondering about, you're absolutely right. If you're reading this post to see if I have an answer to "Are Microcontrollers the Future of Electronics?", I'm afraid I don't have a straightforward answer to it. But I'd like to spark discussions about this through this post. Would more advanced microcontrollers eventually dominate consumer electronics? Or would microcontroller characteristics be integrated into the next generation SoCs, improving power efficiency and reducing cost? Or should microcontrollers stay where it is and only run on various embedded systems?

So, here's what I think personally: 

Microcontrollers definitely have the potential to evolve and dominate lower-end consumer electronics (entry-level laptops and smartphones for basic everyday use), however, for mid-range to high-end electronics, it does risk turning into a SoC itself, wiping out their original advantages such as their simplicity, low-cost, and power efficiency. Hence, SoCs are more likely to stay dominating such fields. But with modern technology evolving rapidly, you'd never know. 

What do you think? Do you think microcontrollers can be the future of electronics and replace SoCs and traditional processors? Let me know in the comments!