1/15/2010

Lecture 1:
Introduction to Microcomputers

Today’s Topics

• What is a microcomputers?

• Why
Wh do we
e st
study
d microcomp
microcomputers?
ters?

• Two basic types of microcomputer architectures

• Internal components of a microcomputers

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Microcomputer

• Major components of the computer - the processor, the control unit,

one or more memory ICs, one or more I/O ICs, and the clock

• A single printed circuit board usually connects the ICs, making a

computer called a microcomputer

Address/Control
Memory

Data/Instructions

Microprocessor

Input
Data
Input / Processor Control
Output (ALU) Unit

Output

Status/Control
Clock

Another definitions
Microcomputers, Microcontrollers, and Microprocessors

• Microcomputer
– Relatively small and inexpensive computer that is contained on
one or a few chips

• Microcontroller
– A single-chip microcomputer

• Microprocessor
– The processor and control unit part of the single-chip
computer(=microcontroller) is called microprocessor.

There is no single and clear

definition of these terms.

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Why do we study Microcomputers?

• Embedded systems use microcontrollers or microcomputers.

• Some interesting statistics (from a few

fe years
ears ago)
– An average American interacts with 300 or more embedded
systems every day.
– 95% of all microprocessor will be sold each year for embedded
systems.
– IEEE estimated that over 700,000 people worldwide were
employed writing code for embedded system in 2007.

Basic Architecture What are ….?

Princeton and Harvard

• There are many other architectures in use. They will be

discussed in a computer architecture course.

• Here, we will cover two major architecture of microcomputers.

– Princeton and Harvard architecture
– The main difference is the memory structure

• Princeton Architecture*
– Known as Von Neumann architecture
– Single memory contains both the program code and the data
data.

• Harvard Architecture
– Two separate memories. One contains only data while the other
is containing only program code.

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Princeton Architecture
Known as Von Neumann

• No separate memory space for program code and data

Address/Control
Memory

Data/Instructions

Microprocessor

Input
D t
Data
Input / Processor Control
Output (ALU) Unit

Output

Status/Control
Clock

Harvard Architecture OK.. I see. One clear

distinction of these two is
whether two separate
memory units exist or not.

• Two separate memory units

• The length of an instruction could be different from the data size
• Both data and a program instruction can be read at the same time
Data Code
Memory Memory

Data Instructions Address

/Control

Microprocessor

Input
D t
Data
Input / Processor Control
Output (ALU) Unit

Output

Status/Control
Clock

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Major components
1. Processor

• Also called an arithmetic logic unit (ALU).

• Operations ssuch
ch as addition
addition, s
subtraction,
btraction bit-wise
bit ise AND and
OR, shift operations.

• The processor has registers (groups of D flip-flops used to

store binary values).

• Many microcontrollers perform operations on data that is

located in a register. This requires the microcontroller to load
the
h data
d from
f memory into a register in the
h processor,
manipulate the data, then store the new value back to
memory.

• The processor also generates signals that indicates when

values are negative, zero, or when arithmetic overflow occurs.

Major components
2. Control Unit

• A synchronous sequential machine that coordinates the flow

of data between the other units and operations of the other
bl k
blocks.

• The sequence of states and control output of the unit depend

on the inputs: the current program instruction, the status
outputs of the other blocks, and the input/output block.

• Generally speaking, central processing unit (CPU) refers to not

only the processor but also the control unit.

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A Quick Introduction of HCS12 Microcontroller

HCS12 (=68HC12 or 9S12) family microprocessor

• The Motorola 68HC12 was introduced in 1996 as an upgrade

for the 68HC11.

• Features
– 16-bit CPU
– Standard 64-KB address space support
– Multiplexed (address and data) external bus.
– 0 to 4 KB of on-chip EEPROM
– 2 KB to 14 KB of on-chip SRAM
– 10 bit A/D converter
10-bit t
– 16 KB to 512 KB of on-chip flash memory (or ROM)
– Etc. etc. etc.

Major components
3. Memory

• Memory is the place where program code and data are stored.

• A sequence
seq ence of directl
directly addressable ‘locations.’
‘locations ’

• Therefore, the number of addresses available in a memory is

limited by the number of bits used to represent the address.

• If 16 bits are used for the address, there are 65,536 (=216)
different addresses available.

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Major components
3. Memory - continued

• A memory location is referred to as an information unit which

has two components: its address and its contents.

Address bus lines

CPU Memory
Data bus lines

• The content indicated by an address can be interpreted by the

microprocessor as one of ttwo
o things
things.
– Instruction code are used as inputs into the control unit and
determine how it operates. A group of instruction is called a
program.
– Data are the numbers to be processed or the results of
operations in the processor.

Major components
4. Clock

• A periodic signal for the sequential machine in the control

unit.

• Also used by other blocks to synchronize operations

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Major components
5. Input/Output

• The Input/Output (I/O for short.) block represents the

interface between the internals of the microcomputer and the
outside
d world.
ld

• Keyboard, LED and LCD display, printers for example.

Instruction Codes

• Instruction codes consist of Operation Code and Operand

• Operation Code (Op Code for short)

– This tells the microcomputer what action to perform and how to
interpret the operand. All instructions must have an op code.

• Operand
– The operand contains the data that microcontroller will perform
the action on.
– Some operands include several numbers for op codes that
specify more complex actions.
– Some operation codes that perform simple tasks do not need to
have operands.

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Instruction Length
Fixed and Variable-length

• Fixed length
– Each instruction is the same number of bits as all others.
Op Code 1 Operand

Op Code 2 Operand

Op Code 3 Operand

• Variable length*
– The length of each instruction may be different.

Op Code 1 Operand

Op Code 2 Operand

Op Code 3 Operand

Questions?

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Wrap-up
What we’ve learned

• The definitions of microcomputers, microcontroller, and

microprocessor

• The importance of microcomputers in the real world

• Princeton* and Harvard architectures

• Processor, control unit, memory, clock, and I/O are the major
components of microcomputers.

Now.. I get the clear picture what the

microcomputers are.

And I feel like that this is going to

be really fun.

What to Come

• Review number systems

• Introduction
Introd ction to the HCS12/9S12

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