module 01 introduction to microprocessors.pdf

Microprocessors  Module 1 Introduction to Microprocessors 1. Orient the students on what a microprocessor is. 2. Orient the students on what a microcontroller is. 3. Identify the different classification of microprocessors. The microprocessor is an electronic chip that functions as the cent...

Microprocessors  Module 1 Introduction to Microprocessors 1. Orient the students on what a microprocessor is. 2. Orient the students on what a microcontroller is. 3. Identify the different classification of microprocessors. The microprocessor is an electronic chip that functions as the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer. In other words, the microprocessor is the brain of any computer system. Microprocessor can be found in almost all consumer electronic devices such as computer printers, washing machines, microwave ovens, mobile phones, fax machines, and photocopiers and in advanced applications such as radars, satellites, and flights. Typically, basic microprocessor chips have arithmetic and logic functional units along with the associated control logic to process the instruction execution. Almost all microprocessors use the basic concept of stored-program execution. Programs or instructions to be executed by the microprocessor are stored sequentially in memory locations. The microprocessor, or the processor in general, fetches the instructions one after another and executes them in its arithmetic and logic unit. A microprocessor can be programmed to perform any task that can be written and programmed by the user. Without a program, the microprocessor unit is a piece of useless electronic circuit. The programmer must take care of all the resources of the microprocessor and use them efficiently for implementing required functionality. So to work with the microprocessors, it is necessary for the programmer to know about its internal resources and features. The programmer must also understand the instructions that a microprocessor can support. Even microprocessor has its own associated set of instructions; this list is given by all microprocessor manufacturers. The instruction set for microprocessors is in two forms – one in mnemonic, whish is comparatively easy to understand and the other in binary machine code, which the microprocessor works with and is difficult for us to understand. Generally, programs are written using mnemonics called assembly-level language and then converted into binary machine-level language. In general, programs are written by the user for microprocessor to work with real world data. Data are available in many forms and from many sources. to input these data to the microprocessor, the microprocessor-based systems need some input interfacing circuits and ports. The semiconductor manufacturing technology for chips has developed from transistor-transistor logic (TTL) to complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS). Microprocessor manufacturing also has one through these technological changes. The other semiconductor manufacturing technology available is emitter-coupled logic (ECL). TTL technology is most commonly used for basic digital integrated circuits; CMOS is favoured for portable computers and other battery-powered devices because of its low power consumption. Classification of microprocessors Microprocessors can be classified based on their specifications, applications and architecture. Based on the size of the data that the microprocessor can handle, they are classified as:  General-purpose processors Microcontrollers Special-purpose processors General-purpose microprocessors are those that are used in general computer system integration and can be used by the programmer for any application. Common microprocessors from Intel 8085 to Intel Pentium are examples of general-purpose microprocessors. Microcontrollers are microprocessor chips with built-in hardware for the memory and ports. These chips can be programmed by the user for any generic control application Special-purpose microprocessors are designed specifically to handle special functions required for an application. Digital signal processors are examples of special- purpose processors; these have special instructions to handle signal processing. Based on the Architecture and hardware of the processors, they are classified as follows: RISC processors CISC processors VLIW processors Superscalar processors RISC (Reduce Instruction Set Computing) is a processor architecture that supports limited machine language instructions. RISC processors can execute programs faster than CISC processors. CISC (Complex instruction set computing) processors are more expensive than RISC processors. VLIW (Very long instruction word) processors have instructions composed of many machine operations. These instruction can be executed in parallel aka instruction level parallelism. Superscalar processors use complex hardware to achieve parallelism. It is possible to have overlapping of instruction execution to increase the speed of execution. Simon Monk (2016), Programming Arduino:Getting Started with Sketches , Second Edition, Mc-Graw Hill Education S. Mathur(2016), Microprocessor and Microcontrollers, PHI Learning and Private Limited http://playground.arduino.cc/ Taylor and Francis Group. Essentials of Computer Architecture. CRC Press, Comer, D. (2017). Jones and Bartlett Learning, Computer Organization And Architecture (10th Ed.), Stallings, (2016)