Department of Electrical Engineering

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The AVR MICROCONTROLLER :
HISTORY AND FEATURES
CHAPTER 2

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 General Purpose Microprocessor
• No RAM
• No ROM
• NO I/O
 Microcontroller
• CPU
• RAM
• ROM
• I/O
• Timers
• ADC

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 Microprocessor find applications where tasks are
unspecific like developing software, games,
websites, photo editing, creating documents etc.
In such cases the relationship between input and
output is not defined. They need high amount of
resources like RAM, ROM, I/O ports etc.

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 Microcontrollers are designed to perform specific
tasks. Specific means applications where the
relationship of input and output is defined. Depending
on the input, some processing needs to be done and
output is delivered. For example, keyboards, mouse,
washing machine, digicam, remote, microwave, cars,
bikes, telephone, mobiles, watches, etc. Since the
applications are very specific, they need small
resources like RAM, ROM, I/O ports etc and hence
can be embedded on a single chip. This in turn
reduces the size and the cost.

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 Major 8-bit Microcontroller
• Motorola ( 68HC08/68HC11)
• Intel’s (8051)
• Atmel’s AVR
• Zilog’s Z8
• PIC (Micro Chip Technology)
 There are also 16 & 32-bit microcontrollers.

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 It must meet the task at hand efficiency and cost
effectively.
• Speed
• Packaging
• Amount of RAM & ROM
• Power consumptions
• Cost per unit
• Number of I/O pins & the timer on the chip
• Easy of upgrade to higher performance or lower
power consumption versions

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 Availabilityof the assembler, a debuggers,
compiler, technical support and both in-house &
outside expertise.
 Wide availability and reliable recourses of the
microcontroller.
• 8051 family has the largest number of diversified
suppliers.

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 IndustrialControl
 Home appliances
 Vehicles
 Security Systems
 Defense Systems
 Health Systems

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 Basic
architecture designed by two students of
Norwegian Institute of Technology
◦ Alf-Egil Bogen and Vegard Wollan
 ATMEL bought and developed the design and
named it AVR
◦ Advanced Virtual RISC or Alf and Vegard RISC
 AVR are mostly 8-bit processors
 Classified into four broad groups
◦ Mega, Tiny, Special Purpose and Classic
 AVRmega32 will be considered

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 32 registers R0 to R31
 All registers are 8-bit
◦ registers bits D7 to D0
 GPRs are a part of the
processor 2 KB SRAM
 3 to 86 pins for I/O
 AVR Peripheals – ADC,
USART

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