Now you have the basic hardware tools, its time to setup the software environment.The main software you will need are: AVR Studio – A GUI IDE for AVR(www.atmel.com, http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/AVRStudio4.13SP2.exe) WinAVR – a free C compiler for AVRs (http://winavr.sourceforge.net/download.html) PonyProg – Serial Device Programmer (www.lancos.com) After downloading them install them in your [...]

Now you know what tools are required for MCU based development. And you are familiar with their uses. Now time to start some real development.To cover these parts you must have some basic knowledge and tools of electroniccircuit fabrication. So now, let us start with the most important tool the programmer. Making a programmer. There are many [...]

Selecting a Micro There are two family of microcontroller that are extremely popular among hobbyist. The “PIC” series from Microchip and “AVR” series from Atmel. Both these chips are wonder of modern microelectronics. PIC had ruled for a long time but now AVR is also getting in serious competition. >>Speed and ease of use. I prefer AVRs because [...]

Just what is a microcontroller? To get you understand quickly I define a microcontroller as a single chip computer.Yes it is a full blown computer in its own. It has a C.P.U., RAM,some amount of EEPROM(for secondary storage i.e. permanent storage without power), many on-chip peripherals(Timer,Serial communication, Analogue to Digital converters etc.).If you don't understand, no [...]