A simple way to learn microcontrollers

Today's college students always say that it's hard to find a job after graduation, but in fact it's because of their own incompetence. When you go to an interview, people ask you what you can do? What are you proficient in? If you didn't learn anything in college, then you can't say anything.

Don't blame them for not hiring you. Think about what kind of people they need. Companies nowadays prefer talents who can start working right away, rather than spending a lot of money to train so-called graduates who don't know much. For example, you apply for a job at a knockoff mobile phone factory, and they ask you what the principle of a mobile phone is. If your answer is: a mobile phone includes a wireless transceiver module, which is composed of a modulation and demodulation, a radio frequency amplifier, and a filter XX, as well as an LCD display module, a key module, a power module, and an embedded system XX, if you can even name the popular mobile phone chips now, who else can they hire if not you?

Let me first introduce the microcontroller. It is no exaggeration to say that the microcontroller is the most important course in the electronic information major. The advertising lights, fireworks shows, traffic lights, and automatic door openings that you see on the street can all be realized with a microcontroller. With a microcontroller, you can write programs into the microcontroller to control the high and low levels of the microcontroller pin output, so that you can control other modules. This realizes automatic control. I can just write the program that I need to control.

Next, I will introduce the learning process of single-chip microcomputer. Some people learn it for two years. Some people learn it very well in one month. Let me tell you that it only took me two weeks to learn 51 single-chip microcomputer. I can almost master the common applications. I can design a circuit and program for a flag raising and lowering system, a temperature automatic control system, etc. Of course, it is impossible to master it in such a short time.

There are shortcuts to learning microcontrollers. First, you need to know what kind of microcontroller you want to learn. I suggest starting with the 80C51 core. The 80C51 is a typical product in the MCS-51 series. Other manufacturers' CMOS process microcontroller products developed with the 8051 as the base core are collectively referred to as the 80C51 series. The main products of the currently commonly used 80C51 series microcontrollers are: Intel's 80C31, 80C51, 87C51, 80C32, 80C52, 87C52 ATMEL's 89C51, 89C52, 89C2051 Philips, Dallas, Winbond, STC Siemens and other companies' products. The reason why we should start with the 80C51 is that many companies currently use 51-core microcontrollers.

Moreover, there is a lot of information about 51, and many people understand it. In fact, if you have learned one type of microcontroller well, it will be easy to learn other microcontrollers. I will start with C51. First, you need to prepare a microcontroller textbook, as long as it is C51 core. Open the book to see what the functions of the microcontroller pins are, what is inside, and what it is used for. You can just read this book as a novel for a day. You are not required to understand it all. It is enough to know what is there. Because from my learning process, just reading theory is equivalent to not learning. Microcontrollers must be theory plus practice, and a lot of practice is required, and the theory is found in the process of practice. This is the fastest way to learn. It's like learning Chinese. You can't write every word. If you encounter something you don't understand, just look up the dictionary.

Then let's talk about practice. Spend about 100 yuan to buy a MCU learning board. If you have experience in making boards, you can also make one yourself. There are many schematics on the Internet. Don't buy too expensive MCU boards. In fact, you don't use many functions during the learning stage. When you have learned enough, you can make those uncommon modules yourself. For beginners, I recommend a running light, a digital tube, an independent keyboard, a matrix keyboard, AD or DA, a liquid crystal, and a buzzer. That's about it.

Generally, when you buy a MCU learning board, it comes with a video teaching CD (don't buy it if it's not there) and some information. For example, application software or something. It is recommended to buy it online, the price is relatively cheap. After you have a learning board, you must have a computer (there are too few college students without computers these days). Then you should watch fewer movies and play fewer games. Follow the tutorials on the learning board CD to learn. First learn how to connect the learning board and the computer, how to download the program to the MCU. How to use development software, such as KEIL. It is recommended that you use C language to program, and you can learn assembly language when you have time.

After all, C language is clear at a glance and has good portability. Although assembly language is efficient, it is difficult to understand. Moreover, the integration of microcontrollers is getting higher and higher, so there is no need for such high-efficiency code. Think about it, it is better to buy a new set of hardware than to spend so much money to support programmers who optimize the code. I am also programming in C language now.

There is almost no need for assembly. After knowing how to use the development software, you can follow the tutorial of the learning board to practice programming. The exercises should be divided into modules. For example, for the running light module, you need to know how the running light is connected to the microcontroller (generally, the learning board is equipped with a circuit diagram). Then you need to be able to write different programs to control the on and off of the LED, and the variety of tricks is up to you.

If you have time, you can go to the Internet to download some source code for running lights. See what new tricks others have. In this way, you can control the on and off of LEDs at will. You can arrange these LEDs into a heart symbol and make a love running light to give to classmate XX. At this time, you can already make a running light circuit board. The same is true for other modules. This process takes about 20 days, and it will be faster if you have a basic foundation. When you have finished learning the learning board you bought, you will already know how to use the single-chip microcomputer. At this time, when you look back at the single-chip microcomputer textbook, you will find that you can fully understand it at this time, and you can read it very quickly, and the more you read, the more fascinated you will be. When you have finished reading this book, congratulations, you have mastered the 51 core single-chip microcomputer. In the future, you can do some projects, develop your own products, and make the circuits you want. The whole process takes about a month.

After learning the 51 single-chip microcomputer, you can learn other single-chip microcomputers and embedded processors, such as AVR, STC, PIC, Lingyang single-chip microcomputer that is good at processing audio, ARM, FPGA and so on.