Author - Ligo George

PWM : Pulse Width Modulation

Pulse Duration Modulation or Pulse Width Modulation is a powerful technique used to control analog circuits using digital outputs. Nowadays PWM has a wide variety of applications such as to create analog voltage level, waveform generation, motor speed control, power control and conversion, measurements and communication etc. PWM uses a rectangular pulse wave as shown in the figure below whose pulse width is modulated, which results in the variation in the average voltage of the waveform. Pulse Width Modulation

PWM Period

The PWM Period is the time...

Expanding Output Pins of a PIC Microcontroller through Multiplexing

Imagine that you want to control 100 LED's with a PIC Microcontroller. No PIC Microcontroller with a DIP package having that many IO lines. This article explains two ways to expand output pins of a Microcontroller through multiplexing. Here we are using Time Division Multiplexing to expand output pins. The first method is by using D-Latch and second method is by using Serial in Parallel Out Shift register. In this tutorial we demonstrate the working by using 64 LEDs.

Using D Flip-Flop and Decoder

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PIC to PIC Communication using UART

Introduction

PIC to PIC communication will be needed in some embedded applications. We have two options to transmit data through transmission lines. Parallel Transmission Serial Transmission

Parallel Transmission

Parallel Data Transmission In parallel communication an entire byte of data is transmitted at a time. That is each bit has dedicated line. Thus for 8-bit data transfer we need 8 dedicated lines as shown above.

Serial Transmission

Serial Data Transmission In Serial Transmission only one bit of a byte is transmitted at a time. There is only one communication line,...

Using Interrupt with PIC Microcontroller

Introduction

Interrupt is the one of the most powerful feature in embedded applications. Almost all the real time applications are implemented using Interrupts. So what is an Interrupt...?? As the name suggests Interrupts are special events that requires immediate attention, it stops a microcontroller/microprocessor from the running task and to serve a special task known as Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) or Interrupt Handler. Suppose you are at home, taking coffee. Suddenly your mobile phone rings. You stop taking coffee and answer the call. When you have...

Using Analog Comparator in PIC Microcontroller

Comparator Module in PIC

Analog Comparator is a device which compares two voltage signals and switches its output to indicate which one is larger. The analog comparator is used in many applications such as battery charger, analog to digital converters, IR sensors where we need to compare two signals. Most of the PIC Microcontrollers have built in Comparator Module which makes ease of design and saves cost. For demonstration, we use PIC16F877A. PIC16F877A consists of two analog comparators which can be used in eight different...

Nanowire 3D Transistors Becomes More Compact

A transistor is a very important electronic device which is used to amplify and switch electronic signals. Semiconductor Chip makers started to use 3D Transistors in 2011 to reduce the size and increase the efficiency of chips. They can pack more 3D transistors into a single chip since it is much more compact than traditional planar transistor. The amount of compactness will not be sufficient for future generations of semiconductor chips and to keep the pace of Moore's Law. Thus there is a...

Interfacing EEPROM with PIC Microcontroller

What is an EEPROM ?

EEPROM is an abbreviation for Electrically Erasable  Programmable Read Only Memory and it is a Non-Volatile memory. It is used in computers and other electronic devices to store data that must me saved during no power supply. EEPROM is a class of ROM (Read Only Memory) which can be electrically erased in bit by bit and able to store new data. A small amount of EEPROM (usually 128/256 bytes) is available internally with PIC Microcontrollers. I have already posted about Using...

Interfacing Matrix Keypad with PIC Microcontroller using MikroC Library

I already posted about Interfacing Matrix Keypad with PIC Microcontroller with some user-defined functions. Advantages in using user-defined functions are we can extend it up to any number of keys and able to customise according to our application. The MikroC Pro for PIC Microcontrollers provides a library for working with 4*4 keypad. It can also be used to interface 4*3, 4*2 and 4*1 keypads. MikroC provides the following three functions to interface Matrix Keypad. Keypad_Init Keypad_Key_Press Keypad_Key_Click

Keypad_Init

Prototype: void Keypad_Init(void); It initializes a particular port for working with keypad. A global...

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