INTRODUCTION TO MICROCONTROLLERS

INTRODUCTION TO MICROCONTROLLERS

A microcontroller is a microprocessor that controls everyday appliances such as microwaves and wristwatches. The micro kits used by computer engineering classes use a Motorola HC11 microcontroller for all of the processing. The HC11 microkits have 8 input switches, a single interrupt request button (IRQ), 8 output LEDs, and a two-line liquid crystal display (LCD). The HC11 kit also has a pulse accumulator, or a counter, which is incremented once per clock cycle.
In a pure sense, a microcontroller is just an IC (integrated circuit, or a black chip thing with pins coming out of it). However it is very common to add additional external components, such as a voltage regulator, capacitors, LEDs motor driver, timing crystals rs232, etc to the basic IC. Formally, this is called an augmented microcontroller.

More >> INTRODUCTION TO MICROCONTROLLERS