New Tech Tuesdays: Combining HMI Processing and Real-Time Control on One MCU
Key Highlights
- Advanced MCUs are narrowing the gap between embedded control devices and application processors.
- Vector processing can accelerate repetitive audio, sensor, and machine-learning workloads.
- Multicore architectures can separate HMI tasks from time-sensitive control functions.
New Tech Tuesdays
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High-resolution displays are common in everyday life, being integrated into applications ranging from medical and industrial equipment to consumer appliances. As these human-machine interfaces (HMIs) become more sophisticated, they increasingly combine displays, touch controls, voice interaction, and local data processing. While these advancing features give users a better experience, the equipment controlled by these interfaces still needs to perform its primary functions reliably and respond to events in real time.
What is changing amid this evolution is how much of the work a microcontroller unit (MCU) can handle by itself. GHz-class processing, vector acceleration, larger amounts of on-chip memory, and multicore architectures are expanding how much HMI processing, local analytics, and real-time control designers can handle on a single MCU.
Combining these requirements can make embedded systems more complex. Designers need enough processing performance for graphics and data analysis while still maintaining deterministic control of sensors, motors, and other hardware. While previous generations of equipment might have required multiple processors or moving from an MCU to a more powerful application processor, newer, higher-performance MCUs are beginning to shift that boundary between functions.
This week’s New Tech Tuesdays reveals how advanced microcontrollers are blurring the lines with application processors, the architectural benefits of bringing more processing onto a single device, and how the latest MCU designs are transforming modern embedded systems.
Bringing More Processing onto the MCU
Traditionally, MCUs have been optimized for control. Integrating processing, memory, and peripherals has made them a good fit for applications that require predictable responses and direct interaction with hardware. Application processors support more compute-intensive workloads and feature-rich operating systems such as Linux, while MCUs are designed around embedded control and deterministic response.
As embedded HMIs have become more capable, the distinction between these two solutions has become less clear. Modern MCUs can combine GHz-class processing with large amounts of embedded memory in hardware designed to accelerate demanding workloads.
Some of the extra processing power goes toward jobs that once needed additional hardware. For example, audio and sensor data involve repetitive calculations that vector processing can handle efficiently. The same hardware is also useful for machine learning (ML) workloads, such as voice recognition and equipment monitoring.
Multicore devices give designers another way to manage the competing demands. HMI processing might run on one core, while the other responds to sensors or controls a motor. Separating those jobs helps prevent a busy interface or processing task from interfering with tasks that need predictable timing. Meanwhile, keeping more functions on one device can reduce the number of components on the board and how much communication is needed between processors.
Combining workloads this way requires careful allocation of processing time, memory, and peripherals. The question for designers is becoming more about whether the HMI and local processing workload actually require a separate application processor. >>Read the entire article at Mouser
