Architecture
Peripheral
A hardware component that provides I/O or specialized functionality, connected to the processor via bus interfaces.
Detailed Explanation
Peripherals include UART, SPI, I2C (communication), GPIO (general-purpose I/O), timers, PWM generators, ADC/DAC, and specialized accelerators. They offload tasks from the processor and interface with the external world.
Peripheral registers are typically memory-mapped, accessible through load/store instructions. Interrupts notify the processor of peripheral events. DMA enables high-bandwidth peripheral data transfer without processor intervention.