Everything on a Single Chip

Several technical terms in electronics are imprecisely defined, and ‘SoC’ is a prime example. The term can be used so narrowly as to cover only highly complex industrial controller ICs or so broadly as to cover almost any device capable of computing something, from the humblest microcontroller to a single-chip PC. We will take a wander through the world of smaller and larger devices and try to find out what makes an IC an SoC.