8051 Compilers

The 8051 (and its hoard of follow-up compatible derivates) is the most widely used microcontroller in the industry. One of the advantages of working with this microcontroller is the huge amount of information on associated hardware and software. The Internet is by far the largest resource for users of 8051 derivates. In this article we will focus our attention on compilers for the 8051.The good old 8051 and 8052 may well thank their renown to the ease of programming via the world famous BASIC-52 interpreter (which Elektor Electronics magazine was the first to describe and use in practical projects). These days, semiconductor manufacturers produce controllers whose core is based on the 8051 architecture, although the actual chip technology is much faster and extended with respect to the original introduced many years ago. The extended architecture may include more memory, a watchdog, an LCD interface, D-A and A-D converters and various other elements.