This document discusses microcontroller units (MCUs), including prominent MCU manufacturers, factors that affect MCU choice, and facilities required for MCU development. It outlines the steps needed to get started with an MCU, such as familiarizing oneself with the MCU's package, architecture, and instruction set, as well as practicing assembly programming and understanding how to program the MCU using higher-level languages and connect external devices. The document emphasizes repeating these steps is often necessary to comfortably use an MCU.

1. General Aspects of Computer Organization
(Lecture-7)
R S Ananda Murthy
Associate Professor and Head
Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering,
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering,
Mysore 570 006
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization

2. Prominant MCU Manufacturers
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization

3. Factors Affecting Choice of MCU
Memory requirement.
I/O port requirement.
Communication features required.
Hardware peripherals required like timers, counters, ADCs,
DACs, comparators, multipliers, PWM signal generator.
Speed – affected by word length and clock frequency.
Packaging, cost and availability.
Power constraints.
In-circuit programming and debugging facility.
Availability of user documentation, development kits,
software development tools and programmers.
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization

4. Facilities Required in MCU Development Platform
Editor – required to write the program in assembly
language or in higher level language.
Assembler – translates assembly language program to
machine code.
Compiler – translates higher level language program to
machine code.
Debugger – used to detect errors in program.
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization

5. Facilities Required in MCU Development Platform
Programmer – hardware used to copy the machine code
into the program memory of the MCU.
Simulator – used to test the working of a program without
loading it into the MCU.
IDE – Integrated Development Environment – is the GUI
for all the development tools.
Development board – hardware having the chosen MCU
and associated peripheral devices.
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization

6. Steps to Get Started with an MCU
Familiarize with the package and signals at various pins.
Understand the internal architecture by going through the
block diagram.
Study the assembly language instruction set.
Practise assembly language programming.
Understand how to use various internal facilities like
timers/counters, I/O, serial I/O, ADC/DAC, PWM etc.
Understand how to program the microcontroller using
higher level language like C/C++ etc.
Understand how to connect external devices to the
microcontroller.
We may have to repeat all these steps several times to use an
MCU comfortably.
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization

7. License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
R S Ananda Murthy General Aspects of Computer Organization