Lab 2

Introducing the PIC Mid-Range

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Family and the 16F84A and Starting

Eng - Omeir
to Program – an Introduction to
Assembler

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Some Examples of the Microchip Mid-Range Family

Device number No. of Clock Memory Peripherals/special features

pins* speed (K = Kbytes, i.e. 1024
bytes)

16F84A 18 DC to 1K program memory, 1 8-bit timer,

20MHz 68 bytes RAM, 1 5-bit parallel port,
64 bytes EEPROM 1 8-bit parallel port,

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ICSP.

16LF84A 18 DC to as above As above, with extended supply

20MHz voltage range

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16F84A-04 18 DC to as above As above
4MHz
16F87 18 DC to 4K program memory, 2 parallel ports,
20MHz 368 bytes RAM, 3 counter/timers,
256 bytes EEPROM. 2 capture/compare/PWM modules,
2 serial communication modules,
2 analog comparators,
nanoWatt technology,
software-selectable oscillator block,
ICSP.

16F88 18 DC to as above as above, and

20MHz 7 10-bit ADC channels 2
The 16F84A Microcontroller: Pin Connection Diagram

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The 16F84A Block Diagram – the main features
Extra “non-
Address for Program Memory Data volatile” Data
Memory Memory
Program Memory

Data from

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Program
Address for Data
Memory,
Memory
carrying
instruction Data bus for
word Data Memory

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and peripherals

It is easy to see the Program

memory, which uses Flash Counter/Timer
Peripheral
memory technology.
Alongside this comes the
Stack, which we meet later. Digital Input/
Microchip call the main Output Ports
data memory “File
Registers”. There is another
section of data memory
which uses EEPROM 4
The CPU
technology.
The 16F84A Core and Instruction Flow

The Instruction word

flows here. The word will
contain the instruction, and

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maybe also address and
data information

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Address info.
flows here “Literal” data
flows along here

Instruction info
flows here

The core is the “microprocessor

The Arithmetic
inside the microcontroller”, Logic Unit
centred around the ALU. It is
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interesting to see the path that the
instruction takes from program The “Working
Register”
memory.
The Status Register

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Condition
Code
Flags

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Program Memory and Stack
Program
Counter

16 Series
instructions which The program
invoke the Stack must start here

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The Interrupt
Service Routine Program Counter
must start here points to locations in
program memory

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Unimplemented memory
space, still addressable by
the 13-bit 16F84A program
address bus.

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Data Memory and Special Function Register Map

These are the Special Function

Registers, which allow the CPU
to interact with the peripherals msb is “bank

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select bit”
(Status register).

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General purpose memory

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 The 16F84A The configuration word determines certain operating features of the
Configuration microcontroller. It is in program memory, but cannot be accessed in
Word normal operation. It is written to during the programming process.
You set its value either by response to a dialogue box in MPLAB, or
by use of Assembler Directives, at the head of your programme.

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Instruction Pipelining

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Summary

• The PIC mid-range is a diverse and effective family of microcontrollers.

• The 16F84A architecture is representative of all mid-range microcontrollers, with
Harvard structure, pipelining and a RISC instruction set.
• The PIC 16F84A has a limited set of peripherals, chosen for small and low-cost

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applications. It is thus a smaller member of the family, with features that are a subset of
any of the larger ones.
• The 16F84A uses three distinct memory technologies for its different memory areas.

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• A particular type of memory location is the Special Function Register, which acts as the
link between the CPU and the peripherals.
• Reset mechanisms ensure that the CPU starts running when the appropriate operating
conditions have been met, and can be used to restart the CPU in case of program failure.

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The Problem of Programming,
and Programming Options

Shall I
compare 11010010
01010010
thee to a Use Assembler 11010101
summer 01001011
day........? 01100011

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....

Use Machine Code

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Use High Level Language

What options do we have for programming a microcontroller? 12

The Assembler Option

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Developing a Simple Project

Write/modify Source Code

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Assemble/Compile

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(Simulate)

Download

Test in Hardware
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The PIC 16 Series ALU f for file (i.e. memory location in RAM), a 7-bit number;
b for bit, to be found within a file also specified, a single bit;
d for destination, as described above, a single bit;
k for literal, an 8-bit number if data, or 11-bit if address

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 The PIC
16 Series
Instruction
Set

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Some Example Instructions
clrw clears the value in the W register to zero. There are no operands to specify. Column 5
tells us that the Status register Z bit is affected by the instruction. As the result of this
instruction is always zero, the bit is always set to 1. No other Status register bits are affected.
clrf f clears the value of a memory location, symbolised as f. It is up to the programmer to
specify a value for f, which needs to be a valid memory address. Again, because the result is

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zero, the Status register Z bit is affected.
addwf f,d adds the contents of the W register to the contents of a memory location
symbolised by f. There is a choice of where the result is placed, determined by the value of

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the operand bit d. Because of the different values that the result can take, all three condition
code bits, i.e. Z, C, and DC are affected by the instruction.
addlw k adds a literal, i.e. an 8-bit number written into the program and represented by k,
to the value held in the W register. Like the addwf instruction, The Z, C, and DC Status
register bits can all be affected by the instruction.
bcf f,b clears a single bit in a memory location, symbolised by f. The bit number b will take
a value from 0 to 7, to identify any one of the 8 bits in a memory location. No Status register
flags are affected, even though it is possible to imagine that the result of the instruction could
be to set a memory location to zero.
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goto k This instruction causes the program execution to jump to another point in the
program, whose address is given by the constant k. It is up to the programmer to give a value
for k. No Status bits are affected.
Writing in Assembler

Left-most space

Assembler
format: label instruction operand(s) ;comment

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optional

For example:

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label comment

instruction
comment
;now switch on red led
Start bsf status,5 ;select memory bank 1
addwf counter operands 18
Assembler Directives

These look like Assembler mnemonics, but are instructions to the (Cross-)
Assembler program itself. They differ from one Assembler to the other, though
there does tend to be some similarity.

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Assembler Directive Summary of Action
list implement a listing option*

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#include include additional source file
org set program origin
equ define an assembly constant; this
allows us to assign a value to a label
end end program block

Example MPASM Directives

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Representing Numbers

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Radix Example Representation
Decimal D„255‟
or

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Hexadecimal H„8d‟ Ox8d
Octal O„574‟
Binary B„01011100‟
ASCII „G‟ or A„G‟

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Assembler File Structure (Simple Form)
Files that the Assembler
(e.g. MPLAB) generates

For us, this will be

MPLAB Executable File

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.hex

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Source File List File
Assembler
.asm .lst

Written by you, as a text

file, in Assembler format
Error File
.err

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Introducing MPLAB
Continue here with
the MPLAB tutorial
from page 86 of the
book.

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A First Program

;******************************************************************
;Very first program
;This program repeatedly adds a number to the Working Register.

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;TJW 1.11.08 Tested 1.11.08
;******************************************************************
;
; use the org directive to force program start at reset vector
org 00

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;program starts here
clrw ;clear W register
loop addlw 08 ;add the number 8 to W register
goto loop
end ;show end of program with "end" directive

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A second Program

;
;specify SFRs
status equ 03
porta equ 05
trisa equ 05
portb equ 06
trisb equ 06

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;
org 00
;Initialise
start bsf status,5 ;select memory bank 1

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movlw B'00011000'
movwf trisa ;port A according to above pattern
movlw 00
movwf trisb ;all port B bits output
bcf status,5 ;select bank 0
;
;The “main” program starts here
movlw 00 ;clear all bits in ports A and B
movwf porta
movwf portb
loop movf porta,0 ;move port A to W register
movwf portb ;move W register to port B
goto loop 24
end
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Instruction Formats of PIC Mid-Range Microcontrollers

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