Fundamentals of Microprocessor Electronics

Higher education teachers: Jankovec Marko
Collaborators: Pirc Matija, Ždralo Branko

Subject description

Prerequisits:

• Basics of digital electronics and programming in C.
• The condition to apply for the exam is completed laboratory practice.

Content (Syllabus outline):

• Introduction and overview of history and the current state-of-the-art of microprocessor technology. The basic building blocks of digital systems. Memory properties and technologies.
• Microprocessor architecture. Architecture of the core. Instruction sets. Elements of microprocessor systems.
• Review of Atmel AVR microcontrollers architecture. Overview of development tools. The organization of registers, memory, instruction set and addressing modes.
• Supervisory systems in microcontrollers, voltage monitoring. Methods of system clock generation. Methods of programming and debugging, design and realization of microprocessor circuits.
• Peripherals units of small microcontrollers.
• Typical electronic structure of digital I/O lines, I/O registers. Timers and counters with extended features: CCP, ICP, PWM. The analogue comparator and a reference, the A/D converter.
• Interrupts and interrupt routines. Power management.
• Data transfer: parallel and serial transfer, clock and synchronization. Asynchronous and synchronous transmissions. Electrical properties of communications signals at the reception and transmission, cables and connectors. Electronic circuits for communication. Serial communication standards.

Objectives and competences:

To achieve deep understanding of microprocessor and microcontroller based electronic systems and develop the ability to integrate different CPU peripherals. The course provides the expertise necessary for programming and debugging of microcontrollers in various applications.

Intended learning outcomes:

Student becomes familiar with the principles that allow building and programming small microprocessor systems.

Learning and teaching methods:

• Lectures,
• laboratory practice,
• project work,
• presentation of the project.

Study materials

Readings:

1. John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson, Computer Architecture, A quantitative approach, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., ISBN 1-5586-0596-7, 1990.
2. Dhananjay V. Gadre, Programming and customising the AVR microcontroller, McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0-0713-4666-X, 2001.
3. Günther Gridling, Bettina Weiss, Introduction to Microcontrollers, 2006.