There is a lot material out there about microcontroller
programming. Most of it focuses on the software side of
things – orthogonal instruction sets, code optimization,
high-level language programming tricks and tweaks in
assembler environments, even taking advantage of a
device’s peculiarities to make it do what you want. This
is, of course, a very good thing, as microcontrollers end
up doing more complex tasks in more sophisticated
applications, the ability to write elegant code becomes
more and more valuable.
What doesn’t get mentioned as often is the last key part
of the process: actually getting that elegant code into
the microcontroller itself. The author still remembers
well his first experience, in the days before Microchip
even existed, of trying to piece together several
hardware specifications in order to figure out how the
programming process was supposed to work. True,
device programming is a vital step, but it doesn’t
always get the attention it deserves.
That brings us to the point of this application note. For
more than a decade, Microchip has published a lot of
information about programming its 8-bit micro-
controllers. There is now so much information out
there, in fact, that it’s sometimes hard for engineers
and technicians who are unfamiliar with Microchip
products to know where to start. The purpose of this
paper is to provide the entry point for information on
programming Microchip’s 8-bit microcontrollers. While
we can’t cover every programming specification in
detail, we can give you a good idea of how the process
works and show you what to look for in a specification.
We’ll also touch briefly on how in-system programma-
bility can affect an application’s design and finish with
other programming and diagnostic innovations that
make applications more reliable. AN910
PICmicro Device Programming: What You Always
Wanted to Know (But Didn’t Know Who to Ask)
Author: Eric Somerville THE BASICS
Microchip Technology Inc.
If you’ve had previous experience with programming
microcontrollers, you’re already familiar with the basic
INTRODUCTION issue: a microcontroller in an embedded application is
not a computer. There is no convenient built-in GUI for
There is a lot material ……
