Ask HN: Number of Microcontrollers in a Modern Computer?
Approximately how many microcontrollers&#x2F;CPUs are in a modern computer beyond the primary CPUs? I keep thinking about this question but I can&#x27;t seem to word my question in a way that Google will give an actual answer to.<p>I know that modern CPUs themselves often have integrated microcontrollers for things like the management engines and whatnot. In the thread about the M1 GPU it&#x27;s noted that the GPU is controlled by a full ARM core. And then of course I&#x27;d assume there are a bunch on the motherboard and all of the I&#x2F;O systems. Going back to even the Macintosh SE, its ADB implementation used a PIC microcontroller instead of a dedicated ASIC. I assume the number has exploded since then.