PIC16F Foundation (Assembly)

Overview
This "hands-on" course aims to provide engineers with an understanding of the PIC16C / PIC16F family of microcontrollers and experience of using Microchip development tools to create and debug simple assembly language programs. The emphasis is on providing a solid foundation of knowledge of the architecture and features of this range of microcontrollers, together with practical experience of the development tools and the steps required to embark on a new development.

Key Skills

• Understand the architecture and features of the PIC16C / PIC16F family of microcontrollers
• Gain hands-on experience of Microchip development tools for creating and debugging assembly language programs on a target PIC16C / PIC16F microcontroller
• Be introduced to the use of on-chip peripherals to simplify interfaces to the outside world

Practical Work
The course includes many practical workshop exercises which are interleaved with the relevant presentation material for maximum impact and variety. These exercises are carried out using MPLAB® software running on a Windows® PC, an MPLAB® ICD2 programmer/debugger and a target development board containing a PIC16C / PIC16F microcontroller on which programs created during the exercises can be observed to be running in real-time.
Laboratory Workshops Include:

• Programme object code into a target PIC16F microcontroller using MPLAB® and MPLAB® ICD2
• Create, build and debug new assembly language projects using MPLAB® and MPLAB® ICD2
• Use MPSIMTM to simulate and debug code prior to programming it into a target device
• Understand the components of an assembly source file
• Set the PIC16C / PIC16F configuration options appropriately for the target system
• Use digital I/O ports to interact with the outside world
• Manipulate data memory using direct and indirect addressing
• Create time delays using software loops and hardware timers
• Take advantage of interrupts to handle events in the background
• Jump and call routines across pages in program memory
• Use PC-relative addressing to implement look-up tables
• Implement robust design techniques to protect against malfunctions

Course Contents
Microchip Overview

• Market profile
• product range
• key advantages and support network

Overview of Development Tools

• Microchip development software: MPLAB®, MPSIMTM and associated tools
• Microchip In-Circuit Debugger (MPLAB® ICD2) and In-Circuit Emulator (ICE) hardware
• Device programmers, and the design option of In-Circuit Serial Programming (ICSPTM)
• Demonstration boards and kits
• Third-party development tools

The PIC16C / PIC16F Architecture and Instruction Set

• Harvard versus Von Neumann architecture
• Organisation of program and data memory
• Op-codes and addressing modes: immediate, direct and indirect
• On-chip peripherals and interrupts
• Classes of operations performed by op-codes

The MPASMTM Assembler

• Assembler directives and op-codes
• Programming style - use of templates and comments
• Debugging assembly code using MPLAB®, MPSIMTM and MPLAB® ICD2
• Interrupt service routines - how to create handlers using assembly code