In designing µC-based systems, you often face a situation in which the µC has to respond to an external event happening at an uncertain moment in time. One example is receiving an echo from an object ...

Edge-triggered interrupts are useful in microcontroller (MCU) applications for processing asynchronous events like switch closures, level transitions, and pulses. However, low-cost MCUs offer limited ...

We love interrupts in our microcontroller projects. If you aren’t already convinced, go read the first installment in this series where we covered the best aspects of interrupts. But everything is not ...

What’s the biggest difference between writing code for your big computer and a microcontroller? OK, the memory and limited resources, sure. But we were thinking more about the need to directly ...

The need for timing in embedded programming often exceeds the small number of available hardware timers in microcontrollers. For example, the Microchip PIC16F84A has one timer, but you can create as ...

As portable systems become increasingly power-conscious, the need for smart power management becomes equally important. Besides the main processor, an auxiliary Microcontroller Unit (MCU) often ...

In recent years, wireless communications have grown to encompass applications like remote control, remote sensing, and wireless local-area networks (WLANs). The data rates of such implementations vary ...