Digital Controllers

Digital Controller

3rd stage

Chapter: 3
On – ChIp CCP

Lecturer : Noora NazarKurji

Ali Salman
Digital Controllers

Chapter 3
On-Chip CCP
Capture | Compare | PWM

This chapter will discuss, CCP which stands for Capture, Compare and Pulse width modulation is
one of the most complicated modules in PIC microcontrollers. I will go through this module only
briefly, as not overburden the beginner. In fact this module does three functions, or it has three
modes. There are two such modules present in PIC18F452.

Now consider an example of ultrasonic range finder. The project consists of a few driving
transistors, and standard 40KHz ultrasonic transducers. The microcontroller uses its CCP module
in capture mode. So the value of timer1 is noted and an impulse is given on Tx transducer, when
the impulse is returned the CCP module stores the new value of Timer1 in CCP register,
subtracting the previous value from current value gives you the time to echo.

From this you can easily calculate distance. (See projects section).
If we talk about CCP1, it is the same as CCP2. The central point in CCP module is CCPR register.
This is a 16 bit register and consists of a H and L parts. This register contains the values captured
or compared with

Timer1. Remember when Capture is initiated, Timer1, is not initialized. And at the time of capture, what-
ever the value of Timer1 register is copied into this register.
Digital Controllers

In Capture Mode, the peripheral allows timing of duration of an event. This circuit gives insight
into the current state of some register which constantly changes its value. In this case, it is the
timer TMR1 register. Thus with this mode we can measure for how long a pin remained in logic 1
or 0.

Fig: Capture Mode Operation Diagram

The Compare Mode compares values contained in two registers at some point. One of them is the
timer TMR1 register. This circuit also allows the user to trigger an external event when a
predetermined amount of time has expired. Thus if you set a compare register to some value, when
Timer1 reaches that value, a capture event takes place and an interrupt signal is fired indicating
that a predefined time period has been elapsed.

PWM - Pulse Width Modulation can generate signals of varying frequency and duty cycle. The
ratio between ON and OFF states of the pulse determines the amount of energy transferred to
device. This method is useful in controlling the speed of motors, or brightness of LEDs etc.

Pulse Width Modulation

Pulse width modulation is a technique where digital data is used to control the energy transfer to a
device.

Whenever a digital signal is high it is powering the target device, like a transistor, or LED. When it
is Low it is not powering the device. If the line is constantly kept high, full energy (100%) is being
transferred to the device and when it is constantly Low, there is No energy transfer. In between if
the line is On for some time and Off for some time, the energy delivered depends upon the ON
time / Off time ratio as well as the frequency of pulses. As you can see in this figure when On time
is small and Off time long, Bulb hardly gets any time to turn ON, As the ON time is increased and
Digital Controllers

OFF time decreased it gets brighter. This is called the Duty Cycle. So the duty cycle is ratio
between ON and OFF. A 50% duty cycle is equal ON and Equal OFF time per cycle.

Another common usage of PWM is creation of various kinds of waveforms, like sine wave. If you
recall the sounds chapter, various types of sound waves are formed by internally using PWM.

In order to produce a waveform from the digital circuit, we have to include some sort of filter. This
filter can be as simple as an RC-Filter, which charges the capacitor, and gradually discharges. The
rate and speed of charging is influenced by the width of pulse.

Notice when pulses are wide, the waveform reaches peak, and when the pulses are narrow, with
smaller duty cycle the waveform falls down. Devices which operate in this way are often used in
practice as switching regulators which control the operation of motors (speed, acceleration,
deceleration etc.).

The figure above shows block diagram of the CCP1 module setup in PWM mode. In order to
generate a pulse of arbitrary form on its output pin, it is necessary to determine only two values-
pulse frequency and duration.
Although a lot needs to be discussed about these various modules, and various registers that set
these parameters,
Digital Controllers
Digital Controllers
I think it will be rather confusing for a beginner. So
now let's come to the business, and see how our
Proton Basic is going to help. Just like other
commands, as we have seen, all the register level
details are managed by the Proton Basic itself, and we
are left with a neat easy to use code. Nevertheless a
sound understanding of the things behind the scene makes a real difference.
As you know Pulse width Modulation as such is a technique, if you can produce On/OFF wave on
any pin, it can be used as PWM output. In this example we are going to produce a PWM output on
pin PORTC.0 which is also connected to the LED on PIC Lab-II board. So that we can see the effect.
You can make a waveform simply by changing the ON and OFF times. In this example we have used
a command offered by
Device=18F452 Output LED
XTAL=20 Dim x As Byte
ALL_DIGITAL true x=100
Symbol LED PORTC.0 loop:
Symbol SW3 PORTE.0 If SW3=0 Then x=x-10:DelayMS 200
Symbol SW4 PORTE.1 If SW4=0 Then x=x+10:DelayMS 200
Input SW3 PWM LED,x,1000
Input SW4 GoTo loop

Proton Basic called PWM, accepts a pin as parameter and duty cycle as second parameter, the
number of pulses to be sent as last parameter. Duty is a variable or a constant which specifies the
analog level required. It ranges from 0-255. 255 produce full 5V.

PWM emits a burst of 1s and 0s whose ratio is proportional to the duty value you specify. If duty is
0, then the pin is continuously low (0); if duty is 255, then the pin is continuously high. For values in
between, the proportion is duty/255. For example, if duty is 100, the ratio of 1s to 0s is 100/255 =
0.392, approximately 39 percent. When such a burst is used to charge a capacitor arranged, the
voltage across the capacitor is equal to:-

(duty/ 255) * 5.

So if duty is 100, the capacitor voltage is

(100/255) * 5 = 1.96 volts.

This voltage will drop as the capacitor discharges through whatever load it is driving. The rate of
discharge is proportional to the current drawn by the load; more current = faster discharge. You can
reduce this effect in software by refreshing the capacitor's charge with frequent use of the PWM
command. You can also buffer the output using an op-amp to greatly reduce the need for frequent
PWM cycles.

So we have used a standard I/O line for PWM that is fairly good. However to keep the PWM going
on the instruction must be executed continuously.
Digital Controllers

The hardware PWM module eliminates this need and continuously gives PWM pulses on the specific
PWM pin, while the program continues doing something else. This is really a sort of multitasking.
The output of CCP1 and CCP2 modules are hard- wired to specific pins and they may vary among
PICs, so always read the datasheet. On PIC18F452 CCP1 is on RC2 pin, and fortunately we have
LED on that pin as well, so we can test Hardware PWM right on board.

Notice that after declaring the HPWM statement, the processor is busy in an endless loop to display
some data on LCD, while the CCP1 module is producing PWM pulses on the specified channel.
Since CCP modules pins vary among processors, it is advisable to declare the CCP pin in program.

Device=18F452
XTAL=20
ALL_DIGITAL true
LCD_DTPIN PORTD.4
LCD_RSPIN PORTD.3
LCD_ENPIN PORTD.2
Symbol LED PORTC.2
Symbol SW3 PORTE.0
Symbol SW4 PORTE.1
Input SW3
Input SW4
Output PORTC
CCP1_PIN PORTC.2
Dim x As Byte
PORTC=0
HPWM 1,50,1000
Cls
Print At 2,1,"PWM ON"
loop:
For x=0 To 255
Print At 1,1,DEC3,x
DelayMS 200
Next x
GoTo loop