Microprocessor Selection
There are thousands of microprocessors available on the market. Selection of the right microprocessor for a given application is not an easy task and cannot take place in a vacuum; it must be done with the application in mind. Not only this, the quantity to be produced and the experience and capabilities of the designers must also be considered. The selection process begins with the definition of the application to be followed by matching a given processor with the well-defined application.
Selection Criteria
Sometimes it becomes difficult to extract microprocessor requirements from the application at the early stage of the project. This may be due to several factors, which include the following:
1. Speed compatibility of the microprocessor with peripherals.
2. The time-critical behaviour of the application.
3. The size of the program required to implement certain functions is not known in advance.
These ambiguities serve as a warning that perhaps the project is not adequately defined for the microprocessor selection to be made. Factors to be considered while selecting the microprocessor are price, power consumption, performance, availability, software support and code density.
