29
CHAPTER
Microcontrollers
A MICROCONTROLLER IS A SINGLE IC THAT CONTAINS WHAT WOULD HAVE PASSED FOR MOST OF A home computer in the 1980s. It includes a simple 8-bit (sometimes more) microprocessor, nonvolatile flash memory that holds a program to be run, and random access memory (RAM) to hold temporary data and values. Many microcontrollers also have some electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) that is used for nonvolatile storage of program data. That is, unlike normal RAM, the contents are not lost when the microcontroller is not powered. A microcontroller also has numerous general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins that you can use to interface with sensors, switches, LEDs, displays, etc. It is essentially a computer on ...
Get Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, Sixth Edition, 6th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
