PLCs versus microcontrollers
Over the past 15 years, microcontrollers have become quite common for electronics education and hobbyists in general. At first glance, a PLC is a lot like a microcontroller, and if you were to compare a microcontroller to a PLC from 30 years ago, a PLC basically was a rugged microcontroller. Based on the PLC definition established before, it is quite easy to confuse the two types of controllers or, at the very least, confuse the applications. The nature of PLCs has changed, and the two types of controllers are worlds apart. Therefore, it is especially important to understand the differences between the two types of controllers, as it is often more appropriate to use one type over the other. To understand how a PLC differs from a microcontroller, let us explore what a microcontroller is.
What are microcontrollers?
A microcontroller can best be thought of as a low-level computer on a chip. Common microcontrollers include the following:
- PICs ...
