Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Microcontroller vs Microprocessor:

Microcontroller differs from a microprocessor. The first and most important difference is its functionality. Microprocessor is just a brain or processing element without any peripheral attached to it. In order to activate microprocessor, other components such as Program & Data memory, A/D converter, RAM, Oscillator crystal must be added to it.

Simply, In order to communicate with peripheral environment, the microprocessor must use specialized circuits added as external chips. In short microprocessors are the pure heart of the computers. This is how it was in the beginning and remains the same today.

PIC Microcontroller Families:

In this Blog I am using PIC16F877A which is an 40 Pin 8-bit microcontroller having 

• Program memory              : 14.3KB
• Data memory(SRAM)       : 368 Bytes
• EEPROM                           : 256 Bytes
• Intrupts                              : 15
• Instruction Set                   : 35
• Input / Output Pins            : 33
• 10 bit ADC Channel          :  8 Channels (5 on PortA and 3 on PortE)
• Timer                                 : 3 (2-> 8bit and 1-> 16bit)
• Analog Comparators         : 2
• Communication Protocols : SPI, I2C, USART

Pin Configuration: