Microcontrollers

Receiving infrared signals while conserving system power is difficult, and typically requires the inclusion of complex power-management routines in the firmware. You can avoid that problem by disconnecting power to the microcontroller when IR is not present...

When designing devices with microcontrollers, I like to use some of the analog-to-digital converter inputs to measure onboard voltages along with all the required sensors inputs. This means I often run out of ADC inputs...

Microcontrollers must often read the status of switches in control applications. A typical switch configuration uses pullup resistors on both of the switches to pull the signals high or low for the microcontroller to read...

Texas Instruments introduced the world's smallest MCU, expanding its comprehensive Arm Cortex-M0+ MSPM0 MCU portfolio. Measuring only 1.38 mm2, about the size of a black pepper flake...

It’s remarkable how many switching regulator chips use the same basic two-resistor network for output voltage programming...

For many variable resistor (rheostat) applications, one of the device’s terminals is connected to a voltage source VS. Such a source might be a reference DC voltage, an op amp output carrying an AC plus DC signal, or even ground...

Capturing transient analog signals with a microcontroller normally involves adding a full-fat peak-hold circuit as an external peripheral. This novel approach minimizes that extra hardware by using a µP’s ability to switch its pins between analog and digital modes on the fly...

Figure shows an example of on/off circuitry commonly used in battery-operated devices. The p-channel MOSFET, Q1, serves as a power switch...

Figure silly-simple voltage-to-time ADC is an exercise in dynamic range. Assuming that it is used with a 10-MHz counter/timer, its resolution is roughly 10 µV per count for inputs around 0 V and 100 mV per count at 1 kV, and it never really over-ranges...

Filtering occurs frequently in the analog world. Unfortunately, in the digital world, engineers apply it mainly to the DSPs and not to the small 8-bit microcontrollers that designers commonly use...