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Texas Instruments (TI) is a well-known US-based semiconductor manufacturer. TI is perhaps best
known to many as the manufacturer of some of the fanciest scientific calculators in the market. Of the
long list of electronic devices produced by TI, microcontrollers are on the top. TI manufactures some
of the coolest and advanced microcontrollers of the market today. There are several categories of
micros from TI. These include general purpose low power MCUs which mainly comprise of MSP430s,
ARMs like TM4Cs, MSP432s, etc, micros for wireless communications like CC2xxx series, ARM + DSP
micros, DSP-specialized micros like the TMS32xxx series and so on. It will look as if TI is committed
toward mixed signal microcontrollers that are engineered for highly sophisticated industrial
challenges. This issue will cover an insight of value-line MSP430 general purpose micros.
MSP430s are not seen as much as the popular 8051s, PICs and AVRs. In most of the Asian market, for
example, MSP430s are rare when compared to other microcontrollers and even still rare when
compared to other chips produced by TI itself. I don’t know why there is such an imbalance. Perhaps
one big reason is its inclination towards low power consumption and limited resources. Low-power
means that these MCUs are crafted for special low power applications unlike most other micros.
Secondly TI micros are a bit expensive than other micros. Despites these, TI has provided some great
tools for making things simple. You can get your hands on some cool MSP430 chips through some
affordable Launchpad boards and still it worth every penny learning MSP430s. Firstly, it is a family of
ultra-low power high performance 16-bit (16-bit data bus) micros which are unlike the popular 8-bit
platforms. Secondly MSP430s have highly rich internal hardware peripherals that are second to none.
For instance, MSP430s can be operated over a wide voltage and frequency ranges. Another great
feature that is less common in most 8-bit micros is the DMA controller. Fortunately, MSP430s possess
this. Probably it is your first such micro family that is somewhere between 8-bit and 32-bit micros. In
the end, MSP430s will surely give you a taste of absolute American technology and concepts.
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