The storage block
Storage blocks are components (or groups of components) used to store information. Two storage blocks are always present, the RAM (for lower-end MCUs, it is usually in the CPU chip itself and for higher-end MCUs, it is outside of the chip) and the program storage. Some optional additional long-term storage can be present (usually as flash memory on modern systems, but it can vary from spinning hard drives, EEPROMs, to diode matrix ROMs on older systems).
RAM
RAM is very fast, tightly CPU-coupled (and usually more expensive) memory. This is where the CPU usually fetches its instructions from, stores the short-term results of its operations (they are then stored for the long term in a slower and cheaper storage medium such as flash), and so on. The main characteristics of RAM in current systems are as follows:
- Very fast compared to long-term storage (for example, EEPROM, flash, or a hard drive)
- Much more expensive compared to long-term storage (for...
