Articles and news - Microcontrollers - 7

Laboratory data often appears as Gaussian curves, and today's laboratory data-acquisition software is designed to analyze these data to determine such things as peak location, amplitude, area, and width. A good test signal is useful in developing such software...

The most common method for interfacing multiple switches – multiplexing – allows for the connection of (N/2)2 switches with N microcontroller I/O lines. The method described below, which has its roots in an LED interface technique commonly known as “Charlieplexing,” makes it possible to interface...

Microchip grows its commitment to the 8-bit PIC and AVR MCUs by releasing five new product families and over 60 new devices...

You can use a microcontroller that includes an ADC to design a two-wire-plus-ground keyboard interface. For example, you can use a resistive voltage divider to identify a pressed key...

The performance of the watchdog circuit may not match that of a dedicated watchdog circuit, but this circuit is helpful when the only watchdog in the lab doesn’t meet your design’s temperature requirement and when you are in a hurry to finish a prototype...

Although microcontroller manufacturers try to offer designers products that almost exactly fit the needs of their designs, another output pin is often necessary...

If you use a microcontroller to detect a key closure, checking the states of (x+y) lines requires an equal number of I/O pins. Occupying only one free I/O pin, the circuit communicates with a microcontroller...

Using a PN-junction diode for temperature measurement usually depends on its 2 mV/K temperature coefficient. Less well-known is the fact that the reverse current of a PN-junction diode shows a good exponential dependency over temperature...

Why not take advantage of the micro-controller included in many systems these days? This design uses microcontroller feedback to produce a –50-V, 1-W power supply...

TinyLoad is a simple electronic constant current dummy load. The ATtiny measures voltage, current and temperature of the heat sink, calculates power, energy and battery capacity, controls the fan and displays all relevant data on the OLED...