Microcontrollers and pull-up / pull-down resistors

A pull-up resistor is a resistor connected between a signal conductor (GPIO) and a positive power supply voltage while a pull-down resistor is a resistor connected between a signal conductor and a ground. They are used on inputs to prevent floating lines, rapidly switching between high and low and a middle “undefined” region. Outputs normally do … Read more

AVR MCU Architecture

The AVR architecture is a huge topic in itself. I will just provide a general picture of how the AVR microcontroller works. The AVR uses a Harvard architecture thus it has separate memories and buses for program and data. Instructions in the program memory are executed with a single level pipelining. While one instruction is … Read more