A microcontroller machine is sort of a full pc, with peripherals, and program storage, and knowledge reminiscence, and communications, and, and… properly… all the pieces else, however on a really, very small scale – all constructed right into a single chip. These little computer systems are a lot much less highly effective than your PC, however since they’re additionally a lot, less expensive, these units are in all places – in your watch, in your microwave oven or toaster, in your clock radio, in your TV distant management, even in your kid’s toys. In actual fact, microcontrollers exist in vastly better numbers than all of the hundreds of thousands of PCs there are on the planet.
Trendy microcontroller units retailer their packages in Flash reminiscence – a sort of reminiscence that may maintain its contents even when the ability is turned off.
Flash reminiscence will also be erased and reprogrammed, time and again. That is nice for producers, as a result of a last-minute change to the programming may even be executed after the product has been utterly constructed, simply earlier than the product leaves the manufacturing unit lg공기청정기.
Upgrading the Firmware with a Bootloader
The microcontroller’s programming (known as firmware) can typically be modified even later than that – within the buyer’s home or workplace. That is nice for each producers and the tip person: it’s a lot faster and cheaper to let the shopper improve his machine, moderately than to have him ship the machine again to the manufacturing unit and await an improve.
How do they try this? Within the manufacturing unit, they join a particular field (known as a tool programmer) to the microcontroller, and that field erases and reprograms the microcontroller. This programmer often prices $100 or extra – a really modest price for the manufacturing unit.
However how can we let the shopper do an improve in his personal home, with out having to lend him that particular field (and having to show him how one can use it)? The reply is that the manufacturing unit packages an additional little piece of code into the machine, known as a bootloader, that coexists contained in the machine together with the primary firmware that makes the machine do its regular features. When it is time to improve the primary firmware within the machine, the shopper is instructed to do one thing uncommon (precisely what the shopper should do is the designer’s selection, like urgent a hidden button on the again of the machine, or connecting it to a PC program that sends a particular sign to the machine). This instructions the primary firmware to provide management to the bootloader code within the machine.
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