Intel MCS-51
Sign in to saveAlso known as 8051, Intel 80251
single chip microcontroller series by Intel
Key facts
- Predecessor
- Intel MCS-48
- Successor
- Intel MCS-151
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- microcontroller
- Follows
- Intel MCS-48
- Developer
- Intel
- Image
- KL Intel P8051.jpg
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- MCS-51
- Stack Exchange tag
- stackoverflow.com/tags/8051
- archives at
- Computer History Museum
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~35 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Intel MCS-51 (commonly termed 8051) is a single-chip microcontroller (MCU) series developed by Intel in 1980 for use in embedded systems. The architect of the Intel MCS-51 instruction set was John H. Wharton. Intel's original versions were popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, and enhanced binary compatible derivatives remain popular today. It is a complex instruction set computer with separate memory spaces for program instructions and data.
Intel's original MCS-51 family was developed using N-type metal–oxide–semiconductor (NMOS) technology, like its predecessor Intel MCS-48, but later versions, identified by a letter C in their name (e.g., 80C51) use complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology and consume less power than their NMOS predecessors. This made them more suitable for battery-powered devices.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Intel MCS-51” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.