subject: The Brain of Automation-Microcontroller [print this page] The Brain of Automation-Microcontroller The Brain of Automation-Microcontroller
Ever wondered how man has achieved automation in practically all aspects of human life ranging from crop reaping to children toys. The revolution in electronics industry would not have been possible without what I call the brain of automation: Microcontroller. Microcontrollers can be found in microwave ovens, automated car engines, cruise control and in so many other appliances. In this article I want to discuss the working and functionality of microcontrollers.
Microcontroller can best be regarded as a small computer as it has its own memory, data path and the control unit. Microcontrollers are embedded in other electronic appliances so that they can control the features of this appliance. They dedicatedly serve the purpose in a device and generally do not engage in multiple activities. Microcontrollers are small and since they are produced in bulk they are low cost. There are various different kinds of microcontroller with varying internal architecture and functionalities. 80151 series, Motorola, PIC, Hitachi, Texas, and ARM are the well known families of microcontrollers. These microcontrollers vary in terms of their data path, RAM, number of ports, ROM, interrupts etc. While Intel, Philips, Atmel, Siemens, Dallas and Samsung are the well known manufacturers of microcontrollers.
Going a little further into the internal architecture of the microcontroller, let us talk about the various processor architectures that the microcontrollers must follow for their CPU design. CISC and RISC are the two processor architectures commonly known both differing in terms of their handling of instructions. Than in terms of storage capability we have Princeton architecture and Harvard architecture; both for the processor design. In Princeton both program and data instructions have a common memory while in case of Harvard architecture memory is separate for both.
Microcontroller is run by a program which controls the functionality of the device. Microcontroller can be programmed using Assembly language (instructions more close to machine readable language) or it can be programmed in Structured language (instructions close to human readable language).
There are a number of books and online articles which can be accessed to learn how to program a simple microcontrollers. For the readers benefit I am pasting some links here:
