About AVR
From Wiki
Contents |
What's an AVR?
An AVR is the name of an 8-bit microcontroller made by Atmel Corporation..
A raw AVR chip is a step beyond the "Basic Stamp" controllers, giving a little more hardware responsibility and much more programmability.
Its in direct competition with the "PIC" series of microcontrollers, but offers several benefits:
- Lower cost. Cheap AVR chips are less than $2.
- Faster clock rates for the dollar.
- More general purpose I/O pins (every pin except power and ground is GPIO on most AVRs)
- No "support" chips required. AVRs are self contained with Flash, EEPROM, RAM and CPU all on one chip.
- A clean selection of devices available. PICs have a larger selection, but largely in a "what cruft do you want today?" fashion
- Look at compiler prices for a PIC. Now price out what you need to program the full family. Breathe. The AVR has the "GCC" C compiler for free. FREE!
- Basic and other languages are cheaper, too. (Why? see next..)
- PIC assembler is a mess, with random paging, one W register, and evil modes. AVRs have 2 flat memory spaces, Code and RAM. 32 (almost) general purpose registers. Close to binary compatibility across the whole line.
What do you use it for?
Microcontrollers are generally used to make things like coffee makers, toasters, remote controls, etc. For the hobbyist, they can serve as the "brains" for small robots or electronics projects. They can interface to other existing electronics, like keyboards, USB, or almost any other digital electronics device.
How do I get started?
To get started with AVR programming, I'd recommend checking out this Hardware "Kit" Page. Once you have the hardware you need (at a minimum, an STK500 and a few chips), then you can build AVR GCC and start programming!
