WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF MICROCONTROLLERS!

 Hi to all of you! This is my first blog post about the Arduino electronics series. We will discover a plethora of fascinating information about Arduino in this series. Don't worry if you've never worked with an Arduino or other microcontroller before. Every concept will be started from scratch. Thus, NO PREREQUISITES! Without any further delay, let's get started.

 Microcontroller

  Let's attempt to gain an intuitive grasp of the functions and principles of a microcontroller. Consider it as an all-purpose calculator that can perform any computation task that is thrown at it. When represented as a block diagram, we can say:

   In the example above, we are providing an instruction to the microcontroller to add two numbers (ADD 5 & 6). After that, the microcontroller decodes the command and outputs the result. The example above highlights three important ideas for us to comprehend.

              1) Instructions:   "Instructions" is the format in which the microcontroller is given a set of instructions to follow. Each microcontroller will have a unique instruction set, or language. For instance, we used the instruction "ADD 5 & 6" in our fictitious microcontroller, which is one of its language's instructions.

               2) Memory:  In the above example, we had only one instruction. What if you have to perform hundreds of Instructions (well most microcontrollers can do more than hundreds!). Asking them one at a time will be difficult. To solve this problem, we have our savior "Memory". In Memory, we can store a lot of instructions and the microcontroller will take each instruction and execute without human intervention. Note: Microcontroller will have its own memory.

                3) CPU: All the instructions will be decoded and executed in the CPU.

What is an Arduino

 One of the popular open-source development boards, Arduino is used by both experts and enthusiasts to create a wide range of fascinating electronic projects. The "ATMEGA" microcontroller, sometimes referred to as the board's brain, is located inside the board. It is in charge of carrying out every assignment that comes to it in the form of instructions. A series of Instructions forms what we all know as "Software Program".

Picture of Arduino Development Board

 We now have a basic understanding of microcontrollers. In the following post, we'll learn more about Arduino so that we may expand on these ideas.