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A microcontroller is a small computer on a single metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of ferroelectric RAM, NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal computers or other general purpose applications consisting of various discrete chips.
A shift register is a type of digital circuit using a cascade of flip-flops where the output of one flip-flop is connected to the input of the next. They share a single clock signal, which causes the data stored in the system to shift from one location to the next. By connecting the last flip-flop back to the first, the data can cycle within the shifters for extended periods, and in this form they were used as a form of computer memory. In this role they are very similar to the earlier delay-line memory systems and were widely used in the late 1960s and early 1970s to replace that form of memory.
AVR is a family of microcontrollers developed since 1996 by Atmel, acquired by Microchip Technology in 2016. These are modified Harvard architecture 8-bit RISC single-chip microcontrollers. AVR was one of the first microcontroller families to use on-chip flash memory for program storage, as opposed to one-time programmable ROM, EPROM, or EEPROM used by other microcontrollers at the time.
I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit, eye-squared-C), alternatively known as I2C or IIC, is a synchronous, multi-controller/multi-target (controller/target), packet switched, single-ended, serial communication bus invented in 1982 by Philips Semiconductors. It is widely used for attaching lower-speed peripheral ICs to processors and microcontrollers in short-distance, intra-board communication.
The MSP430 is a mixed-signal microcontroller family from Texas Instruments, first introduced on 14 February 1992. Built around a 16-bit CPU, the MSP430 is designed for low cost and, specifically, low power consumption embedded applications.
Electronic test equipment is used to create signals and capture responses from electronic devices under test (DUTs). In this way, the proper operation of the DUT can be proven or faults in the device can be traced. Use of electronic test equipment is essential to any serious work on electronics systems.
The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a synchronous serial communication interface specification used for short-distance communication, primarily in embedded systems. The interface was developed by Motorola in the mid-1980s and has become a de facto standard. Typical applications include Secure Digital cards and liquid crystal displays.
1-Wire is a device communications bus system designed by Dallas Semiconductor Corp. that provides low-speed data, signaling, and power over a single conductor.
JTAG is an industry standard for verifying designs and testing printed circuit boards after manufacture.
The 6522 Versatile Interface Adapter (VIA) is an integrated circuit that was designed and manufactured by MOS Technology as an I/O port controller for the 6502 family of microprocessors. It provides two bidirectional 8-bit parallel I/O ports, two 16-bit timers, and an 8-bit shift register for serial communications or data conversion between serial and parallel forms. The direction of each bit of the two I/O ports can be individually programmed. In addition to being manufactured by MOS Technology, the 6522 was second sourced by other companies including Rockwell and Synertek.
XDR DRAM is a high-performance dynamic random-access memory interface. It is based on and succeeds RDRAM. Competing technologies include DDR2 and GDDR4.
The Low Pin Count (LPC) bus is a computer bus used on IBM-compatible personal computers to connect low-bandwidth devices to the CPU, such as the BIOS ROM, "legacy" I/O devices, and Trusted Platform Module (TPM). "Legacy" I/O devices usually include serial and parallel ports, PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, and floppy disk controller.
In-system programming (ISP), or also called in-circuit serial programming (ICSP), is the ability of some programmable logic devices, microcontrollers, and other embedded devices to be programmed while installed in a complete system, rather than requiring the chip to be programmed prior to installing it into the system. It also allows firmware updates to be delivered to the on-chip memory of microcontrollers and related processors without requiring specialist programming circuitry on the circuit board, and simplifies design work.
The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for connecting keyboards and mice to a PC compatible computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987. The PS/2 mouse connector generally replaced the older DE-9 RS-232 "serial mouse" connector, while the PS/2 keyboard connector replaced the larger 5-pin/180° DIN connector used in the IBM PC/AT design. The PS/2 keyboard port is electrically and logically identical to the IBM AT keyboard port, differing only in the type of electrical connector used. The PS/2 platform introduced a second port with the same design as the keyboard port for use to connect a mouse; thus the PS/2-style keyboard and mouse interfaces are electrically similar and employ the same communication protocol. However, unlike the otherwise similar Apple Desktop Bus connector used by Apple, a given system's keyboard and mouse port may not be interchangeable since the two devices use different sets of commands and the device drivers generally are hard-coded to communicate with each device at the address of the port that is conventionally assigned to that device.
VisSim is a visual block diagram program for simulation of dynamical systems and model-based design of embedded systems, with its own visual language. It is developed by Visual Solutions of Westford, Massachusetts. Visual Solutions was acquired by Altair in August 2014 and its products have been rebranded as Altair Embed as a part of Altair's Model Based Development Suite. With Embed, you can develop virtual prototypes of dynamic systems. Models are built by sliding blocks into the work area and wiring them together with the mouse. Embed automatically converts the control diagrams into C-code ready to be downloaded to the target hardware.
Background debug mode (BDM) interface is an electronic interface that allows debugging of embedded systems. Specifically, it provides in-circuit debugging functionality in microcontrollers. It requires a single wire and specialized electronics in the system being debugged. It appears in many Freescale Semiconductor products.
McASP is an acronym for Multichannel Audio Serial Port, a communication peripheral found in Texas Instruments family of digital signal processors (DSPs) and Microcontroller Units (MCUs).
The McASP functions as a general-purpose audio serial port optimized for the needs of multichannel audio applications. Depending on the implementation, the McASP may be useful for time-division multiplexed (TDM) stream, Inter-Integrated Sound (I2S) protocols, and intercomponent digital audio interface transmission (DIT). However, some implementations are limited to supporting just the Inter-Integrated Sound (I2S) protocol.
The McASP consists of transmit and receive sections that may operate synchronized, or completely independently with separate master clocks, bit clocks, and frame syncs, and using different transmit modes with different bit-stream formats. The McASP module also includes up to 16 serializers that can be individually enabled to either transmit or receive. In addition, all of the McASP pins can be configured as general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins.
Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI) is a widely used serial interface standard for industrial applications between a master and a slave. SSI is based on RS-422 standards and has a high protocol efficiency in addition to its implementation over various hardware platforms, making it very popular among sensor manufacturers. SSI was originally developed by Max Stegmann GmbH in 1984 for transmitting the position data of absolute encoders – for this reason, some servo/drive equipment manufacturers refer to their SSI port as a "Stegmann Interface". It was formerly covered by the German patent DE 34 45 617 which expired in 1990. It is very suitable for applications demanding reliability and robustness in measurements under varying industrial environments.
MIPI Alliance Debug Architecture provides a standardized infrastructure for debugging deeply embedded systems in the mobile and mobile-influenced space. The MIPI Alliance MIPI Debug Working Group has released a portfolio of specifications; their objective is to provide standard debug protocols and standard interfaces from a system on a chip (SoC) to the debug tool. The whitepaper Architecture Overview for Debug summarizes all the efforts. In recent years, the group focused on specifying protocols that improve the visibility of the internal operations of deeply embedded systems, standardizing debug solutions via the functional interfaces of form factor devices, and specifying the use of I3C as debugging bus.
The MSP432 is a mixed-signal microcontroller family from Texas Instruments. It is based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F CPU, and extends their 16-bit MSP430 line, with a larger address space for code and data, and faster integer and floating point calculation than the MSP430. Like the MSP430, it has a number of built-in peripheral devices, and is designed for low power requirements.
References
- ↑ "MSP430™ Programming Via the JTAG Interface". Texas Instruments. 2010.