2018-01-08
965
1. When was the first computer system on a chip optimized for control applications – microcontroller released?
2. What two variant did most microcontrollers have?
3. When was EEPROM memory introduced?
4. What did EEPROM memory allow microcontrollers?
5. What did Atmel introduce the same, 1993, year?
6. Did other companies rapidly follow suit, with both memory types?
7. Are microcontrollers cheap or expensive nowadays?
8. Whom are microcontrollers readily available for?
9. What is the future of MRAM?
10) What do a few recent microcontrollers have?
Write a short summary of the text.
Unit 17 Programming environments of microcontrollers
Before reading the text try to answer the following questions and
Then read the text and check yourselves.
1. What language were microcontrollers originally programmed in?
2. Why do many microcontrollers require their own nonstandard dialects of C?
3. Are simulators available for some microcontrollers?
4. What will a simulator will show?
5. What can be the quickest way to debug and analyze problems?
Read the text, give it your own title and make up a plan to it.
Microcontrollers were originally programmed only in assembly language, but various high-level programming languages are now also in common use to target microcontrollers. These languages are either designed specially for the purpose, or versions of general purpose languages such as the C programming language. Compilers for general purpose languages will typically have some restrictions as well as enhancements to better support the unique characteristics of microcontrollers. Some microcontrollers have environments to aid developing certain types of applications. Microcontroller vendors often make tools freely available to make it easier to adopt their hardware.
Many microcontrollers are so quirky that they effectively require their own non-standard dialects of C, such as SDCC for the 8051, which prevent using standard tools (such as code libraries or static analysis tools) even for code unrelated to hardware features. Interpreters are often used to hide such low level quirks.
Interpreter firmware is also available for some microcontrollers. For example, BASIC on the early microcontrollers Intel 8052; BASIC and FORTH on the Zilog Z8 as well as some modern devices. Typically these interpreters support interactive programming.
Simulators are available for some microcontrollers, such as in Microchip's MPLAB environment. These allow a developer to analyze what the behavior of the microcontroller and their program should be if they were using the actual part. A simulator will show the internal processor state and also that of the outputs, as well as allowing input signals to be generated. While on the one hand most simulators will be limited from being unable to simulate much other hardware in a system, they can exercise conditions that may otherwise be hard to reproduce at will in the physical implementation, and can be the quickest way to debug and analyze problems.
Recent microcontrollers are often integrated with on-chip debug circuitry that when accessed by an in-circuit emulator via JTAG, allow debugging of the firmware with a debugger.
