Course M103 - PIC16F Foundation Workshop using the HI-TECH PICC 'C' Compiler (3 days)
(*Certified by Microchip*)

This “hands-on” course aims to provide engineers with an understanding of the PIC16C / PIC16F family of microcontrollers and experience of using HI-TECH and Microchip development tools to create and debug simple 'C' programs.

Course Outline

Microchip Overview
Market profile, product range, key advantages and support network

Overview of Development Tools
Microchip development software: MPLAB® and associated tools
HI-TECH PICC 'C' compiler
Microchip In-Circuit Debugger (MPLAB® ICD2) hardware
The PICDEMTM 2 Plus demonstration board

The PIC16C / PIC16F Architecture
Harvard versus Von Neumann architecture
Organisation of data memory
On-chip peripherals
In-Circuit Serial Programming (ICSPTM) – available on some devices

The HI-TECH PICC Compiler
Key features and extensions to support the PIC16C / PIC16F architecture
HI-TECH PICC data types, storage classes and type qualifiers
Programming style – use of templates and comments
Debugging at 'C' source level using MPLAB® and MPLAB® ICD2
Inclusion of external source code modules to add functionality to the project
Interrupt service routines – how to create handlers using HI-TECH PICC

Intended Audience

This course is aimed at engineers with an understanding of microelectronics and programming who intend to create projects using the 'C' language, but who are new to the PIC16C / PIC16F architecture and/or the HI-TECH PICC 'C' compiler. A prior knowledge of generic 'C' programming is assumed, together with familiarity with the Windows® environment on a Personal Computer.

Key Skills

Understand the architecture and features of the PIC16C / PIC16F family of microcontrollers

Gain hands-on experience of Microchip development tools and the HI-TECH PICC compiler for creating and debugging 'C' programs on a target PIC16C / PIC16F microcontroller

Be introduced to the use of on-chip peripherals to simplify interfaces to the outside world

Create, build and debug new projects on a target board using PICC, MPLAB® and MPLAB® ICD2
Set the PIC16C / PIC16F configuration options appropriately for the target system
Use digital I/O ports to interact with the outside world
Display information on an LCD module
Read the value of an analogue input using the A-to-D converter
Use an interrupt handler to collect data in the background
Set up a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) output with a variable duty cycle
Communicate with a PC over a serial interface using the USART peripheral

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 ICD 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.