MICROCONTROLLER (For some control application)

Microcontroller is ‘single chip computer’ If you try designing a computer systems (For some control application) using a traditional microprocessor like 8086, you can abandon the project in frustration, trouble is that the microprocessor is just one component of the system and you need to add like RAM, ROM, timers, counters and interrupt circuitry and I/O ports to make it complete. This is complex job and requires sophisticated knowledge of processors internals .It’s here microcontroller comes for our rescue.

Microcontrollers with flash memory, which is non volatile memory that can be erased using electrical signals, the basic idea is to write the programs (mostly in assembly language or ‘C’) on PC and convert into machine language code, belonging to the target microcontrollers instruction set. Once this is done, the machine code can be transferred to the non volatile memory of the microcontroller via simple circuit, connected to the serial or parallel port .This process is called the programming or ‘burning the micro’.

One most expensive device which is known as ‘Piggy Back’ version which has no ROM memory internally, instead pin outs on the top of the microcontroller form a socket in which EPROM program memory device can be installed.

APPLICATIONS:-Microcontrollers are frequently used in automatically controlled products and devices as

1 LCD control
2 Motor controls
3 Remote controls
4 Car Audios
5 Disk players
6 Camera /cane coder
7 Video Game console
8 Washing machine
9 Vacuum cleaner
10 Ventilation systems
11 Microbots
12 Fire and security machines

Author: Mark Thompson(Component Engr.)
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