Introduction to Microcontrollers

 

Chapter1: Introduction to Microcontrollers

• Introduction
• 1- What are microcontrollers and what are they used for?
• 2- What is what in microcontroller?

Introduction

It was electricity in the beginning....The people were happy because they did not know that it was all around them and could be utilized. That was good. Then Faraday came and a stone has started to roll slowly...

The first machines using a new sort of energy appeared soon. A long time has passed since then and just when the people finally got used to them and stopped paying attention to what a new generation of specialists were doing, someone came to an idea that electrons could be a very convenient toy being closed in a glass pipe. It was just a good idea at first, but there was no return. Electonics was born and the stone kept on rolling down the hill faster and faster...

A new science - new specialists. Blue coats were replaced with white ones and people who knew something about electronics appeared on the stage. While the rest of humanity were passively watching in disbelief what was going on, the plotters split in two groups - “software-oriented” and “hardware-oriented”. Somewhat younger than their teachers, very enthusiastic and full of ideas, both of them kept on working but separate ways. While the first group was developing constantly and gradually, the hardware-oriented people, driven by success, threw caution to the wind and invented transistors.

Up till that moment, the things could be more or less kept under control, but a broad publicity was not aware of what was going on, which soon led to a fatal mistake! Being naive in belief that cheap tricks could slow down technology development and development of the world and retrieve the good all days, mass market opened its doors for the products of Electronics Industry, thus closing a magic circle. A rapid drop in prices made these components available for a great variety of people. The stone was falling freely...

The first integrated circuits and processors appeared soon, which caused computers and other products of electronics to drop down in price even more. They could be bought everywhere. Another circle was closed! Ordinary people got hold of computers and computer era has begun...

While this drama was going on, hobbyists and professionals, also split in two groups and protected by anonymity, were working hard on their projects. Then, someone suddenly put a question: Why should not we make a universal component? A cheap, universal integrated circuit that could be programmed and used in any field of electronics, device or wherever needed? Technology has been developed enough as well as the market. Why not? So it happened, body and spirit were united and the first integrated circuit was designed and called the MICROCONTROLLER.

1. What are microcontrollers and what are they used for?

Like all good things, this powerful component is basically very simple. It is made by mixing tested and high- quality "ingredients" (components) as per following receipt:

1. The simplest computer processor is used as the "brain" of the future system.
2. Depending on the taste of the manufacturer, a bit of memory, a few A/D converters, timers, input/output lines etc. are added
3. All that is placed in some of the standard packages.
4. A simple software able to control it all and which everyone can easily learn about has been developed.

On the basis of these rules, numerous types of microcontrollers were designed and they quickly became man's invisible companion. Their incredible simplicity and flexibility conquered us a long time ago and if you try to invent something about them, you should know that you are probably late, someone before you has either done it or at least has tried to do it.

The following things have had a crucial influence on development and success of the microcontrollers:

• Powerful and carefully chosen electronics embedded in the microcontrollers can independetly or via input/output devices (switches, push buttons, sensors, LCD displays, relays etc.), control various processes and devices such as industrial automation, electric current, temperature, engine performance etc.
• Very low prices enable them to be embedded in such devices in which, until recent time it was not worthwhile to embed anything. Thanks to that, the world is overwhelmed today with cheap automatic devices and various “smart” appliences.
• Prior knowledge is hardly needed for programming. It is sufficient to have a PC (software in use is not demanding at all and is easy to learn) and a simple device (called the programmer) used for “loading” raedy-to-use programs into the microcontroller.

So, if you are infected with a virus called electronics, there is nothing left for you to do but to learn how to use and control its power

How does the microcontroller operate?

Even though there is a large number of different types of microcontrollers and even more programs created for their use only, all of them have many things in common. Thus, if you learn to handle one of them you will be able to handle them all. A typical scenario on the basis of which it all functions is as follows:

1. Power supply is turned off and everything is still…the program is loaded into the microcontroller, nothing indicates what is about to come…
2. Power supply is turned on and everything starts to happen at high speed! The control logic unit keeps everything under control. It disables all other circuits except quartz crystal to operate. While the preparations are in progress, the first milliseconds go by.
3. Power supply voltage reaches its maximum and oscillator frequency becomes stable. SFRs are being filled with bits reflecting the state of all circuits within the microcontroller. All pins are configured as inputs. The overall electronis starts operation in rhythm with pulse sequence. From now on the time is measured in micro and nanoseconds.
4. Program Counter is set to zero. Instruction from that address is sent to instruction decoder which recognizes it, after which it is executed with immediate effect.
5. The value of the Program Counter is incremented by 1 and the whole process is repeated...several million times per second.