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From what I understand arduino is a programmable control module with rewritable ss memory. What do you call the family of ics that are  used in common day electronics from your average calculator to a tomagachi game?

[Reply #1 on:]

Preprogrammed chips ? 

[Reply #2 on:]

From what I understand arduino is a programmable control module with rewritable ss memory. What do you call the family of ics that are  used in common day electronics from your average calculator to a tomagachi game?

Programmable control modules, with rewritable ss memory.

[Reply #3 on:]

There's not a single answer to this question. MCUs, MPUs, ASICs, FPGAs, SoC are all common and there is a fair amount of overlap between them, so there could be more than one good answer even for a single application.

Why do you ask?

[Reply #4 on:]

Jack has the most correct answer, IMHO.

What do you mean by "ss memory"?

[Reply #5 on:]

Solid State memory?

[Reply #6 on:]

What, as opposed to tubes?

[Reply #7 on:]

What, as opposed to tubes?

Of course not!
Magnetic core.

[Reply #8 on:]

What, as opposed to tubes?

My memory's not what it used to be but I think the early tamogotchis had hard disks in them.

[Reply #9 on:]

That's solid. :'P

So, Flash or EEPROM.

[Reply #10 on:]

What, as opposed to tubes?

My memory's not what it used to be but I think the early tamogotchis had hard disks in them.

I thought there was punchcards in them things...

[Reply #11 on:]

Ferrite core...

[Reply #12 on:]

From what I understand arduino is a programmable control module with rewritable ss memory. What do you call the family of ics that are  used in common day electronics from your average calculator to a tomagachi game?

I call those COBs.  Chip On Board.  Typically they are a custom die which is mounted direct on the PCB then covered in black epoxy (or whatever that black stuff is).  There is absolutely nothing "generic" about them - each one is custom designed and manufactured in their hundreds of thousands (or millions) for the one specific bulk job.

The chip fabricator may build the design up out of various modular blocks, but the resultant chip is custom and cannot really be used for anything else.