THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF SRI LANKA

Faculty of Engineering Technology

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Bachelor of Technology – Level 04
Course Information Sheet (2020/2021)

EEX4436 – Microprocessors and Interfacing

Target Group:
Students who are readying for the Degree in Engineering Technology

Course Aims:
To provide background knowledge to build simple microprocessor-based systems.

Course Outcomes:

 Describe the software design with an assembly language and/or a high-level language for typical embedded
systems applications using modern tools and development and debugging approaches.
 Demonstrate digital interfacing using parallel and asynchronous/synchronous serial techniques incorporating
typical on-chip modules such as general-purpose I/O, timers, and serial communication modules.
 Describe the use of the periodic interrupts, waveform generation, time measurement in microcontroller-based
systems.
 Demonstrate analogue interfacing using analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converters connected to
sensors and actuators.
 Design a microcontroller-based system for a real-world application fulfilling the given specifications.

Outline Syllabus:

 Microprocessors and Microcontrollers

 Overview of Microprocessors and Microcontrollers
 Characteristics of microprocessors and microcontrollers
 Hardware overview of microcontroller-based systems
 Software tools for microcontroller-based systems
 Software design for microcontroller-based systems

 Inputs and outputs

 Input and output peripherals
 Memory system design
 Different I/O configurations of a microcontroller
 Polled driven and interrupt-driven programming

 Timers and counters

 Timers and counters
 Time measurement and programming of the hardware timers
 Design procedures and algorithms for the microcontroller-based applications.

 Communication
 Parallel I/O versus serial I/O
 Asynchronous serial interface
 Synchronous serial interface
 Controller area network and applications

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  Sensors and actuators
 Sensors and interfacing
 Actuators and interfacing

 Microcontroller based system design

 Mixed-signal interfacing techniques
 Controlling mixed-signal circuits
 Design of data acquisition systems
 Microcontroller based system design

Laboratory Work:
1. Demonstrate the functionalities of the microcontroller development board using the self-test method.
2. Demonstrate the basic interfacing techniques using mixed-signal circuits, I/O peripherals, sensors and actuators.
3. Implement a designed system using a microcontroller development board as a prototype model

Design Project
 Apply microcontroller-based systems design concepts in the real-world application
 Analysis of design parameters to design microcontroller-based systems.

Learning activities
 Two home-based Tutor Marked Assignments (TMA’S)
 Design project
 One CAT Test
 Three lab classes in six days

You are required to prepare two home TMAs and a design project report. These should be prepared individually, although
you are encouraged to form discussion groups and discuss the issues among yourselves whenever possible. Plagiarism (that
is, presenting other’s work as your own) will not be tolerated and will be reflected in the grade of all parties involved. After
each lab classes, a viva voce examination will be held. Further Oral evaluation (VIVA) will be there for each TMA and
design project.

There will be one CAT (Continuous Assessment Test). The CAT will be OPEN BOOK type, where you are allowed to
refer to any materials during the test.

There are seven activities in this course. two TMAs, a design project, Three Lab Sessions and One CAT

Laboratory:
At the time of registration, you are supposed to assign yourself to a particular lab group. If you are not assigned to a group
yet, please contact the course coordinator and get a group.

When you come to the LAB, you should bring the soft copy of the ALP (Assembly Language Program) that you have
written for each TMA.

Day Schools:
There will be six dayschools in both Colombo and Kandy regional centres. Please attend the first day of school without
fail. The first day school will be an introductory session for the course.

Course Components:
At the time of registration, you should receive the following:
 ECX4436 Microprocessors and Interfacing Laboratory Experiment Book (Lab manual).

Prerequisites:
EEX3510(P), MHZ3531(P), DMX3511(P),[ {ECX3233(EL) OR EEX3533(CA)} ,[[{ECX3150(EL) OR EEX3350(CA)}
,{ECX4150(EL) OR EEX4350(CA) OR EEX4351(CR)}]OR EEX3530(P)]]OR[{MEX3272(EL) OR DMX3572(CA)}
OR{MEX3274(EL) OR DMX3574(CA) }

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Eligibility:
The best six of the seven activities will be considered towards the continuous assessment mark.

CA Final = Average Best 6 of (2 TMA,1Design Project, 3 lab sessions, 1 CAT)

Lab Average = average of (3 lab sessions)

Eligibility = CA Final ≥ 40% AND Lab Average ≥ 40% AND Design Project ≥ 40

Final Examination:
There will be a three hour CLOSED BOOK type test at which you are not allowed any reference materials.

Recommended Readings:

 What Every Engineer should know about Micro-Computers

Hardware/Software Design a Step-by-step Example
(William S. Bennett and Carl F. Evert, Jr.)

 The 8051 Microcontroller and Embedded System Using Assembly and C

Second Edition
Prentice-Hall India
(Muhammed Ali Mazidi, Junice Gillispie Mazidi, Rolin D. Mckinlay)

 8051 Microcontrollers
MSC51 Family and Its Variants
Oxford University Press
(Satish Shah)

Online resources

1. Moodle online class is available for this course.

Web Address: https://learnousl.ou.ac.lk
Username: ‘s’ number given in the student record book
Password: National Identity card number (with Capital V)

2. You can access the Google Drive folder, which has valuable resources for this course. You can get access to google
drive by joining the following google group.
https://groups.google.com/g/eex4436_2021/

3. FB Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/ECX4236/

Contacts:
S-mail: - The Course Coordinator, ECX4436 Microprocessors and Interfacing,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Open University of Sri Lanka
P.O. Box 21, Nawala, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka.

E-mail: - CJ Basnayakage - cjbas@ou.ac.lk Phone: - Direct: +94 11 288 1437 (or Ext: 437)
DS Wickramasinghe – dswic@ou.ac.lk

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