What do you need to program a microcontroller

Tuesday 5 April 2016

What do you need to program a microcontroller

Microcontrollers are getting more common in synths.

So its important to get started understanding these if you are ever to master DIY, repairs, etc.

Soldering is just the first step. once you have it on your board and are happy you don't have any shorts

you will need to program the thing.

How do I do this? There are 4 things you need.

1. Microcontroller

2. programmer

3. IDE (integrated development environment)

- compiler

- text editor

4. basic circuit building skills

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1. Microcontroller

There are lots of companies that make microcontrollers.

Each of these companies have their own programmers, compilers, etc.

This makes it tricky when deciding which programmer to buy, as there isn't one programmer that

works for everything.

Lets look at 2 popular companies:

Microchip & Atmel

* Microchip produces microcontrollers with three very different architectures:

8, 16, & 32 bit

Here is their website

8-bit (8-bit data bus)]

-PIC10 and PIC12:

- PIC16 series

- PIC18

16-bit (16-bit data bus)

- PIC24F

- PIC24H

- ds PIC 30

- Ds PIC 33

32-bit (32-bit data bus)

- PIC 32

Atmel were acquired my Microchip so they share the same website

You can get started here

Here is a brief list of Atmel Microcontrollers

    ATmega168PA AU Atmel Arduino IC. SKU : RM1155. ...
    ATmega328 Microcontroller for Arduino. SKU : RM2940. ...
    ATmega8 Microcontroller. ...
    ATmega16 Microcontrollers. ...
    AT89S2051 Microcontroller. ...
    ATmega16 Microcontroller with Robosapiens Boot Loader Software. ...
    ATmega168 Microcontroller. ...
    ATmega32 Microcontroller.

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2. programmer

The programmer is the device that is used to send the code from your

computer to the chip.

Each company has many programmers.

Your choice will depend on how advanced you want to get.

Here is an example of a PIC/Microchip programmer