Teach you the difference between DSP and MCU

This article briefly introduces the difference between DSP and MCU.
1. Different memory structures

The microcontroller uses a von Neumann memory structure, in which there is only one memory space connected to the processor core through a set of buses (an address bus and a data bus).

Most DSPs use the Harvard structure, which divides the memory space into two parts, storing programs and data respectively.

2 Fixed-point calculation
Most DSPs use fixed-point calculations instead of floating-point. In order to avoid using floating-point machines while ensuring digital accuracy, DSP processors support saturation calculations, rounding, and shifting in both instruction sets and hardware.

3 Specialized addressing methods

DSP processors often support specialized addressing modes, such as module (circular) addressing and bit-reversal addressing. These very specialized addressing modes are not often used in GPP and can only be implemented in software.

4 Support for dense multiplication operations

Microcontrollers are not designed to do intensive multiplication tasks, and even some modern GPPs require multiple instruction cycles to do a multiplication. DSP processors use specialized hardware to implement single-cycle multiplication. DSP processors also add accumulator registers to handle the sum of multiple products. Accumulator registers are usually wider than other registers, adding extra bits called result bits to avoid overflow.

5 Zero-overhead loops

Single-chip microcomputer is a more accurate translation of Single-chip Microcomputer, but the word that can most accurately reflect the design concept of single-chip microcomputer and has a long-term technical vision is Microcontroller. The reason why the term Single-chip Microcomputer appears is that in the early days, even in the MSC-51 period, single-chip microcomputers accurately reflected the form and content of Single-chip Microcomputer. However, when it developed to MSC-96 and the new generation of 80C51, M68HC05, and M68HC11 series of single-chip microcomputers, various control functions were expanded in single-chip microcomputers, such as: A/D, PWM, PCA counter capture/comparison logic, high-speed I/O port, WDT, etc., which have broken through the traditional content of Microcontroller and developed towards the connotation of Microcontroller. Therefore, it is time to give the single-chip microcomputer a correct name, and it has gradually been unified into Microcontroller abroad. If we still keep the customary name of single-chip microcomputer, we should think of it as a single-chip microcontroller, or directly call it a microcontroller or single-chip microcontroller, instead of using the terms single-chip microcomputer or single-chip computer.
In addition: One of the latest advances in integration technology is to integrate the CPU and peripheral chips, such as program memory, data memory, parallel and serial I/O ports, timer/counter, interrupt controller and other control components into the same chip to make a single-chip microcomputer.