The microcontroller is a special type of microprocessor and it integrates the components of microprocessor in single chip which builds a single integrated circuit, it contains the processor core, input/output peripheral and these microcontrollers needs the devices to collect the data from inputs.
The microcontroller can be broadly classified as three types as 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit microcontroller.
The 8-bit microcontroller consists of internal buses and ALU.
The ALU is an arithmetic and logic unit.
It performs arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction and logical operations like AND, OR gate operations.
The microcontroller generally contains several number of general purpose input/output pins.
Hence, when General purpose I/O Pins are referred to an input state, they used to read the sensors and when it is configured to output stage.
The pins can drive devices as LEDs.
The architectures of microcontroller have some designs include general purpose processor with more number RAM, ROM or I/O functions.
Interrupts: Interrupt used in the microcontroller is used to wake up the device from a low power sleep mode and these interrupt sources are device dependent.
Programming: Generally, many micro-controllers were programmed only in assembly language, but nowadays various high-level programming languages can also be used for programming of microcontroller.
Hence, the programs of microcontroller should be fit in the available on chip program memory and the memory may be read-only memory or flash read only memory.
In microcontroller to convert high-level and assembler language codes into machine language, assemblers and compilers are used.
Features: 1.
Typically microcontroller includes a CPU, ROM, RAM, and timers.
2.
A microcontroller is independent and self-contained.
3.
It is designed for a specific task to control the particular system.
4.
It is typically designed using CMOS.
Applications of Microcontroller: 1.
Blood cell recorder cum analyzer, ECG display cum recorder and patient monitoring system.
2.
Some of communication systems like mobile phones, cable TV, and FAX machines.
3.
Peripheral devices of a computer like LAN Controller, DRAM Controller, laser printer Controller.
4.
It is also used in automotive applications like breaking system, and a dynamic ride control 5.
CRT display controller, a spectrum analyzer, frequency analyzer and so on.
Hence the microcontroller contains its own clock, parallel ports, peripheral functions and especially it contains the own memory.
In the PIC microcontroller, it contains both the RAM memory to store only the data and flash memory where the instructions are stored.
Additionally, it also contains different kinds of instructions set and serial communication functions.