With smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and 5G wireless connectivity dominating the landscape of embedded design in 2022, Microchip’s 8-bit PIC and AVR microcontroller (MCU) families are gaining market share. Over the past 50 years, the market for 8-bit MCUs has grown steadily and Microchip currently sells one device for every human in the western hemisphere each…

Microcontroller (MCU) design is now easier than ever with Microchip Technology‘s new MPLAB cloud tools ecosystem available for PIC and AVR devices. The free, all-in-one cloud platform combines easy, integrated search and discovery of example code, graphical configuration of projects, and code debugging in a collaborative environment. This environment enables enterprise-scale rapid development while simplifying…

The purpose of this article is to explain how to interface a PIC microcontroller to a PC via the USB port.Although the concepts are universal, the examples are specifically for use with MikroElektronika’s ‘MikroC Pro for PIC’. PIC18F2550 and PIC18f4550 are famous for their USB Module. To stay ahead you can start with their datasheets.The most difficult part of this project is exactly what is required to get the PIC microcontroller to communicate with the USB port. The two most important things that absolutely have to be correct are the microcontroller configuration, and the USB device descriptor. If even the smallest thing is incorrect about either of these, communication will not occur. 

Want to know how fast your car’s going? It’s easy—just glance at the speedometer!Speed is a handy measurement that tells you how quickly you can get from one place to another. A car’s top speed is generally a good indication of how powerful an engine it has, but assuming everyone stays within the speed limit, maximum speeds are just numbers on paper—little or no use to anyone. 

The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a high speed, synchronous, serial communication standard. This communication protocol is basically a Master – Slave implementation where the master device controls the clock based on which the slave devices operate. The master communicates with a slave or a number of slaves in a system through the SPI bus. The SPI bus requires a minimum of three wires including SDO (Serial Data Out), SDI (Serial Data Input) and SCK (Serial Clock). Since it is a master controller system the SDO is also called MOSI (Master Output Slave Input) and the SDI is also called MISO (Master Input Slave Output). The SPI is a full-duplex high speed communication protocol. The master and slave can transmit and receive data at the same time. The master is the device which generates clock for all these data transmissions. Read  PIC microcontroller tutorial based on PIC18F4550 microcontrollers in which one of the microcontroller acts as a slave transmitter and the other acts as master receiver. With the help of an LCD, this particular project demonstrates the complete data transfer between a master and slave when both the master and slave are transmitting and receiving the data at the same time. 

The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a high speed, synchronous, serial communication standard. This communication protocol is basically a Master Slaveimplementation where the master device controls the clock based on which the slave devices operates. The master can communicates with one or more slave in the system through SPI bus. The SPI bus requires a minimum of three wires i.e. a SDO (Serial Data Out), SDI (Serial Data Input) and SCK (Serial Clock). Since it is a master controller system the SDO is also called MOSI (Master Output Slave Input) and the SDI is also called MISO (Master Input Slave Output).The SPI is a full-duplex high speed communication protocol. The master and slave can transmit and receive data at the same time. The master generates clock for all these data transmissions.The SPI is special because it is simple and easy to implement in the hardware. The article explores the SPI hardware module of the PIC18F4550 microcontroller. This project will help in better understanding of   the SPI protocol in detail. 

An uninterruptible power source, UPS or battery/flywheel backup, is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power [[wysiwyg_imageupload::]]source, typically mains power, fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power system or standby generator in that it will provide near-instantaneous protection from input power interruptions, by supplying energy stored in batteries or a flywheel. The on-battery runtime of most uninterruptible power sources is relatively short (only a few minutes) but sufficient to start a standby power source or properly shut down the protected equipment.There are different types of UPS such as On line UPS, OFF line UPS and  a Line interactive UPS.This project details in creating an offline project with PIC microcontroller. Off Line UPS the load is connected directly to the mains when main supply is available and it is not too high or not to low. Continue reading to find out how PIC microcontroller is utilized and how the project is put to work.  

Using this system, you can remotely monitor the battery level, mains voltage, battery run time, temperature. It designed using PIC16F877A microcontroller for reducing the external components, such as external ADC, OP-AMP, large number of resistors and capacitors. Lesser external components increase the circuit response and stability. And also decrease the power consumption, noise. The protection can be done by an easy manner. Temperature and battery dry run protection circuits are inbuilt. So there are no external circuits needed. It is very useful for IT industries, computer laboratories, colleges and schools. 

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification and Detection) is widely used everywhere from highly secured defense laboratories to school attendance system. By [[wysiwyg_imageupload::]]employing RFID, much secured entry systems can be developed without incurring huge costs. These are the reasons of excessive use of RFID technology. In this article, interfacing of an RFID reader module has been explained with PIC18F4550. The USART interrupt, an internal PIC interrupt, has also been explained. (For more details on USART, refer PIC EUSART)As explained earlier (refer RFID interfacing with 8051 & with AVR), an RFID module consists of an RFID Reader, a line converter (usually MAX232) and a COM port. The line converter of this module converts the TTL logic voltage of RFID Reader to RS232 logic. Therefore, to convert the voltage level from such an RFID module, another MAX232 is used to interface it with a microcontroller. One can also use an RFID Reader directly to interface with the controller, thus avoiding the need of voltage level converters. Here both the MAX232s have been eliminated from the circuit and RFID reader is directly connected with the PIC microcontroller. 

Before starting with a microcontroller, certain factors like its cost, availability etc. should be considered. One of the most important criteria to choose a controller is the availability of its development tools like assembler, compiler, debugger, simulator etc. Various companies have developed different types of compilers and simulators which are easily available for use.  …

The microcontrollers played revolutionary role in embedded industry after the invention of Intel 8051. The steady and progressive research in this field gave the industry more efficient, high-performance and low-power consumption microcontrollers. The AVR, PIC and ARM are the prime examples. The PIC microcontroller was developed by General Instruments in 1975. PIC was developed when Microelectronics Division of General Instruments was testing its 16-bit CPU CP1600. Although the CP1600 was a good CPU but it had low I/O performance. The PIC controller was used to offload the I/O the tasks from CPU to improve the overall performance of the system. 

A microcontroller is a small and low-cost computer built for the purpose of dealing with specific tasks, such as displaying information in a microwave LED or receiving information from a television’s remote control. Microcontrollers are mainly used in products that require a degree of control to be exerted by the user.Microcontroller has an input device in order to get the input and an output device (such as LED or LCD Display) to exhibit the final process.  The architecture of a microcontroller depends on the application it is built for. For example, some designs include usage of more than one RAM, ROM and I/O functionality integrated into the package. 

Serial communication with embedded project and computer has always been a big deal for the students in their project and professional in their work. So tried to work on that part and created an easy way for interfacing between PC and embedded system using PIC Microcontroller PIC18F2550 AND PIC18F4550.This tutorial provides the basic knowledge of creating small compact USB device interface between pc and embedded system and its controlling. You can control, moniter or implement data acquisition system using this tutorial 

This project demonstrates the use of a accelerometer as a computer mouse,but first what is an accelerometer? Its a device that can measure acceleration and the pull of gravity.There are multiple ways of doing this, the particular one I’m using works with the capacitive method. Inside the chip is a capacitor with an extra plate in the middle that can move. As you know the closer the objects are together the bigger the capacitance, the circuit inside the chip measures the capacitance difference between the two plates and the middle one.