No. Proteus Tutorials
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1. Getting Started With Microcontrollers
2. Getting Started with PIC Microcontrollers
3. Functions Available in PIC18F452
4. How to Install MPLAB Software
5. How to Install MPLAB C18 Compiler
6. Getting started With MPLAB
7. LED Blinking Project on PIC Microcontroller

Hey guys hope you all are fine and healthy. Today I am going to start a new tutorial, its about PIC Microcontrollers. I will start from the very basics of PIC Microcontroller so that the beginner can also learn from it and can easily work on their projects and I will also post some projects in which I will use PIC Microcontroller and will control different modules using it.

The only thing I hate about PIC Microcontroller is the designing of its basic circuit, which we will discuss in coming tutorials, that's why I prefer to work on Arduino which is way more user friendly than PIC Microcontroller but if look at the brighter side of PIC Microcontroller than it is much more flexible in option as compared to Arduino. Let's start today's tutorial, today I will just give an overview of what actually Microcontroller is and why to use it. So, let's begin with getting started with microcontrollers.

What is Microcontroller?

Microcontrollers are used to put brain in your projects. Lets take an example, you have seen different light patterns on the weddings or different functions where it seems like lights are walking, sometimes they show some characters glowing on and off quickly etc. Before microcontrollers such patterns of light were very difficult you need a a lot of circuitry (serial & parallel combinations of lights) and then have to decide which light to on and which to off. A big messy thing but with the invention of microcontroller, now you just have to add a microcontroller and put some coding and you are done. That's the benefit of microcontroller. and second thing in order scenario if something goes wrong then you have to change the hardware connections but in microcontroller just change the code and you are done no need of soldering etc.

Types of Microcontrollers

There are different microcontrollers manufactured by different companies these days. Few of them are :
  • PIC
  • ATMEL
  • AVR
  • FPGa
  • Arduino (Board actually, I will explain later)
  • & a lot more
but all of them have the same function. Lets look at their function.

Function of Microcontroller

Microcontroller is basically a simple chip (IC). We are not discussing its internal architecture as its beyond the scope of this tutorial. We are here just concerned with its ouput. So a microcontroller is just a simple hardware chip. Now how to operate that chip is a question. A microcontroller has different no of pins some has 8 pins some 16 and some 40 even some has 80 pins. Each pin has its own function and we tell the microcontroller what function each pin will perform by adding a code in microcontroller.

PIC Microcontrollers

PIC microcontrollers are manufactured by a company named Microchip. There is a lot of variety of PIC Microcontroller. They named like PIC16F877A or PIC 18F452. The first two numbers show the series like PIC16F series PIC18F series. Each series has its own functions and qualities and their number of pins also varies. In my tutorial, I am gonna use the PIC18 F452 which is shown in the above figure too. That's all for right now. I will continue it after afternoon. Stay blessed .... :))