8051 OR arm

There is no simple answer of best. The best device is the MCU that will acomplish your design task at an acceptable price-point.

In the recent past, the notion that if you needed a lot of bit banging you would go with an 8051 type device but now many ARM vendors have made port bit addressing as easy as the 8051.

If you need a little more computing power go with the ARM Cortex-M3 type devices which are compromise cost devices with the 16 bit Thumb-2 instruction set.

Maybe you need even more power, then look at the higher end ARM devices such as the ARM7, ARM9 or ARM11 devices.

Silicon Labs offer and excellent 32 bit device.

So the advice is, determine your requirements, determine the developement tools available and then determine the device that best meets you requirements.

Bradford

Both!

Both are widely supported by a vast and diverse number of chip manufacturers - including products that are not specifically microcontrollers.
Thus choosing both gives you the widest coverage with the least duplication of effort.

The only downside is that Keil will give you no discount for buying two compilers.

:-(

thanks
Elico

Thanks
Elico

I wonder if to expertise on KEIL for ARM of KEIL for 8051/52
"to expertise" takes YEARS

anyhow, the answer is both or either. If, what it sounds like, that you plan to start some "self study" the choice is difficult since the choice depend on the application and in "self study to have a better chance for a job" you have no idea what will be offered when you are ready. if, indeed, "self study" is what you plan, be ready for a major outlay of cash, the compilers are not cheap and GCC/SDCC experience does not count for much in an industrial setting.

well, on another track, if you are totally inexperienced in embedded, start with the '51 and add the ARM when you have grasped what embedded imply.

Eik

I'm not so sure about ARM7 as an upgrade for Cortex-M3. I think many of the chip manufacturers sees it as a replacement. The instruction set is 16-bit but it's still a 32-bit core. Just that it can't load 32-bit immediate constants in a single instruction.