INTEL 8051 MICRCONTROLLER

Introduction :

A decade back the process and control operations were totally implemented by the
Microprocessors only. But now a days the situation is totally changed and it is occupied by the
new devices called Microcontroller. The development is so drastic that we can’t find any
electronic gadget without the use of a microcontroller. This microcontroller changed the embedded
system design so simple and advanced that the embedded market has become one of the most
sought after for not only entrepreneurs but for design engineers also.

What is a Microcontroller?

A single chip computer or A CPU with all the peripherals like RAM, ROM, I/O Ports,
Timers , ADCs etc... on the same chip. For ex: Motorola’s 6811, Intel’s 8051, Zilog’s Z8 and
PIC 16X etc…
MICROPROCESSORS & MICROCONTROLLERS:
Microprocessor:

A CPU built into a single VLSI chip is called a microprocessor. It is a general-purpose device
and additional external circuitry are added to make it a microcomputer. The microprocessor
contains arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), Instruction decoder and control unit, Instruction register,
Program counter (PC), clock circuit (internal or external), reset circuit (internal or external) and
registers. But the microprocessor has no on chip I/O Ports, Timers , Memory etc.

For example, Intel 8085 is an 8-bit microprocessor and Intel 8086/8088 a 16-bit microprocessor.
The block diagram of the Microprocessor is shown in Fig.1

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 Fig.1 Block diagram of a Microprocessor.

MICROCONTROLLER :

A microcontroller is a highly integrated single chip, which consists of on chip CPU (Central
Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access Memory), EPROM/PROM/ROM (Erasable
Programmable Read Only Memory), I/O (input/output) – serial and parallel, timers, interrupt
controller. For example, Intel 8051 is 8-bit microcontroller and Intel 8096 is 16-bit
microcontroller. The block diagram of Microcontroller is shown in Fig.2.

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Fig.2.Block Diagram of a Microcontroller

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Distinguish between Microprocessor and Microcontroller

S.No Microprocessor Microcontroller

1 A microprocessor is a general A microcontroller is a dedicated chip which

purpose device which is called a is also called single chip computer.
CPU

2 A microprocessor do not contain A microcontroller includes RAM, ROM,

onchip I/OPorts, Timers, Memories serial and parallel interface, timers,
interrupt
etc..
circuitry (in addition to CPU) in a single
chip.

3 Microprocessors are
most Microcontrollers are used in small,
commonly used as the CPU in minimum component designs performing
control-oriented applications.
microcomputer systems

4 Microprocessor instructions are Microcontroller instructions are both bit

mainly nibble or byte addressable addressable as well as byte addressable.

5 Microprocessor instruction sets are Microcontrollers have instruction sets

mainly intended for catering to catering to the control of inputs and outputs.
large volumes of data.

6 Microprocessor based system design Microcontroller based system design is

is complex and expensive rather simple and cost effective

7 The Instruction set of The instruction set of a Microcontroller is

microprocessor is complex with very simple with less number of
large number of instructions. instructions. For, ex: PIC microcontrollers
have only 35 instructions.

8 A microprocessor has zero status A microcontroller has no zero flag.

flag

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These are the most popular and widely used microcontrollers .About 55% of all CPUs sold in the
world are 8-bit microcontrollers only.The 8-bit microcontroller has 8-bitinternal bus and the ALU
performs all the arithmetic and logical operations on a byte instruction. The well known 8-bit
microcontroller is 8051 which was designed by Intel in the year 1980 for the use in embedded
systems. Other 8-bit microcontrollers are Intel 8031/8052 and Motorola MC68HC11 and AVR
Microcontrollers, Microchip’s PIC Microcontrollers 12C5XX ,16C5X and 16C505 etc...

16-bit Microcontrollers : When the microcontroller performs 16-bit arithmetic and logical
operations at an instruction, the microcontroller is said to be a 16-bit microcontroller. The internal
bus width of 16-bit microcontroller is of 16-bit. These microcontrollers are having increased
memory size and speed of operation when compared to 8-bit microcontrollers.These are most
suitable for programming in Highlevel languages like C or C ++ .They find applications in disk
drivers,modems,printers,scanners and servomotor control. Examples of 16-bit microcontrollers
are Intel 8096 family and Motorola MC68HC12 and MC68332 families, The performance and
computing capability of 16 bit microcontrollers are enhanced with greater precision as compared
to the 8-bit microcontrollers.

32-Bit Microcontrollers :These microcontrollers used in highend applications like Automative

control, Communication networks,Robotics,Cell phones ,GPRS & PDAs etc..For EX:PIC32,ARM
7,ARM9 ,SHARP LH79520 ,ATMEL 32 (AVR) ,Texas Instrument’s –. TMS320F2802x/2803x
etc..are some of the popular 32-bit microcontrollers.

COMMERCIAL MICROCONTROLLERS

There are various manufacturers who are supplying various types of microcontrollers suitable for
different applications depending on the power consumption and the available features..They are
given below in tables . First the various members of INTEL 51 family are given in below table.

INTEL MCS 51 Family

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 Microcontroller On chip RAM On chip Timers/Counters Interrupts Serial ports
(Bytes) program
memory

8031 128 None 2 5 1

8032 256 None 3 6 1

8051 128 4K ROM 2 5 1

8052 256 8K ROM 3 6 1

8751 128 4K EPROM 2 5 1

8752 256 8K EPROM 3 6 1

INTEL 8051 MICRCONTROLLER :

The 8051 microcontroller is a very popular 8-bit microcontroller introduced by Intel in the
year 1981 and it has become almost the academic standard now a days. The 8051 is based on an
8-bit CISC core with Harvard architecture. Its 8-bit architecture is optimized for control
applications with extensive Boolean processing. It is available as a 40-pin DIP chip and works at
+5 Volts DC. The salient features of 8051 controller are given below.

SALIENT FEATURES : The salient features of 8051 Microcontroller are

i. 4 KB on chip program memory (ROM or EPROM)).

ii. 128 bytes on chip data memory(RAM).

iii. 8-bit data bus

iv. 16-bit address bus

v. 32 general purpose registers each of 8 bits

vi. Two -16 bit timers T0 and T1

vii. Five Interrupts (3 internal and 2 external).

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 ix. Four Parallel ports each of 8-bits (PORT0, PORT1,PORT2,PORT3) with a total of 32 I/O

lines.

x. One 16-bit program counter and One 16-bit DPTR ( data pointer)

xi. One 8-bit stack pointer

xii. One Microsecond instruction cycle with 12 MHz Crystal.

xiii. One full duplex serial communication port.

ARCHITECTURE & BLOCK DIAGRAM OF 8051 MICROCONTROLLER:

The architecture of the 8051 microcontroller can be understood from the block diagram. It
has Harward architecture with RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) concept. The block
diagram of 8051 microcontroller is shown in Fig 3. below1.It consists of an 8-bit ALU, one 8-bit
PSW(Program Status Register), A and B registers , one 16-bit Program counter , one 16-bit Data
pointer register(DPTR),128 bytes of RAM and 4kB of ROM and four parallel I/O ports each of 8-
bit width.

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 Fig.3. Block Diagram of 8051 Microcontroller

8051 has 8-bit ALU which can perform all the 8-bit arithmetic and logical operations in one
machine cycle. The ALU is associated with two registers A & B

A and B Registers : The A and B registers are special function registers which hold the results of
many arithmetic and logical operations of 8051.The A register is also called the Accumulator and
as it’s name suggests, is used as a general register to accumulate the results of a large number of
instructions. By default it is used for all mathematical operations and also data transfer operations
between CPU and any external memory.

The B register is mainly used for multiplication and division operations along with A register.

MUL AB : DIV AB.

It has no other function other than as a location where data may be stored.

The R registers: The "R" registers are a set of eight registers that are named R0, R1, etc. up to

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and including R7. These registers are used as auxillary registers in many operations. The "R"
registers are also used to temporarily store values.
Program Counter(PC) : 8051 has a 16-bit program counter .The program counter always points
to the address of the next instruction to be executed. After execution of one instruction the program
counter is incremented to point to the address of the next instruction to be executed.It is the
contents of the PC that are placed on the address bus to find and fetch the desired instruction.Since
the PC is 16-bit width ,8051 can access program addresses from 0000H to FFFFH ,a total of 6kB
of code.

Stack Pointer Register (SP) : It is an 8-bit register which stores the address of the stack top. i.e
the Stack Pointer is used to indicate where the next value to be removed from the stack should be
taken from. When a value is pushed onto the stack, the 8051 first increments the value of SP and
then stores the value at the resulting memory location. Similarly when a value is popped off the
stack, the 8051 returns the value from the memory location indicated by SP, and then decrements
the value of SP. Since the SP is only 8-bit wide it is incremented or decremented by two . SP is
modified directly by the 8051 by six instructions: PUSH, POP, ACALL, LCALL, RET, and RETI.
It is also used intrinsically whenever an interrupt is triggered.

STACK in 8051 Microcontroller : The stack is a part of RAM used by the CPU to store
information temporarily. This information may be either data or an address .The CPU needs this
storage area as there are only limited number of registers. The register used to access the stack is
called the Stack pointer which is an 8-bit register..So,it can take values of 00 to FF H.When the
8051 is powered up ,the SP register contains the value 07.i.e the RAM location value 08 is the first
location being used for the stack by the 8051 controller

There are two important instructions to handle this stack.One is the PUSH and the Other
is the POP. The loading of data from CPU registers to the stack is done by PUSH and the loading
of the contents of the stack back into aCPU register is done by POP.
EX : MOV R6 ,#35 H
MOV R1 ,#21 H
PUSH 6
PUSH 1

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 In the above instructions the contents of the Registers R6 and R1 are moved to stack and they
occupy the 08 and 09 locations of the stack.Now the contents of the SP are incremented by two
and it is 0A
Similarly POP 3 instruction pops the contents of stack into R3 register.Now the contents of the SP
is decremented by 1
In 8051 the RAM locations 08 to 1F (24 bytes) can be used for the Stack.In any program if we
need more than 24 bytes of stack ,we can change the SP point to RAM locations 30-7F H.this can
be done with the instruction MOV SP,# XX.
Data Pointer Register(DPTR) : It is a 16-bit register which is the only user-accessible. DPTR,
as the name suggests, is used to point to data. It is used by a number of commands which allow
the 8051 to access external memory. When the 8051 accesses external memory it will access
external memory at the address indicated by DPTR. This DPTR can also be used as two 8-registers
DPH and DPL.
Program Status Register (PSW) : The 8051 has a 8-bit PSW register which is alsoknown as Flag
register.In the 8-bit register only 6-bits are used by 8051.The two unused bits are user definable
bits.In the 6-bits four of them are conditional flags .They are Carry –CY,Auxiliary Carry-AC,
Parity-P,and Overflow-OV .These flag bits indicate some conditions that resulted after an
instruction was executed.

The bits PSW3 and PSW4 are denoted as RS0 and RS1 and these bits are used th select the bank
registers of the RAM location. The meaning of various bits of PSW register is shown below.

CY PSW.7 Carry Flag

AC PSW.6 Auxiliary Carry Flag

FO PSW.5 Flag 0 available for general purpose .

RS1 PSW.4 Register Bank select bit 1

RS0 PSW.3 Register bank select bit 0

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OV PSW.2 Overflow flag

--- PSW.1 User difinable flag

P PSW.0 Parity flag .set/cleared by hardware.

The selection of the register Banks and their addresses are given below.

RS1 RS0 Register Bank Address

0 0 0 00H-07H

0 1 1 08H-0FH

1 0 2 10H-17H

1 1 3 18H-1FH

Memory organization : The 8051 microcontroller has 128 bytes of Internal RAM and 4kB of on
chip ROM .The RAM is also known as Data memory and the ROM is known as program memory.
The program memory is also known as Code memory .This Code memory holds the actual 8051
program that is to be executed. In 8051 this memory is limited to 64K .Code memory may be
found on-chip, as ROM or EPROM. It may also be stored completely off-chip in an external
ROM or, more commonly, an external EPROM. The 8051 has only 128 bytes of Internal RAM
but it supports 64kB of external RAM. As the name suggests, external RAM is any random access
memory which is off-chip. Since the memory is off-chip it is not as flexible interms of accessing,
and is also slower. For example, to increment an Internal RAM location by 1,it requires only 1
instruction and 1 instruction cycle but to increment a 1-byte value stored in External RAM requires
4 instructions and 7 instruction cycles. So, here the external memory is 7 times slower.

Internal RAM OF 8051 :

This Internal RAM is found on-chip on the 8051 .So it is the fastest RAM available, and it is also
the most flexible in terms of reading, writing, and modifying it’s contents. Internal RAM is
volatile, so when the 8051 is reset this memory is cleared. The 128 bytes of internal RAM is
organized as below.

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(i) Four register banks (Bank0,Bank1, Bank2 and Bank3) each of 8-bits (total 32 bytes). The
default bank register is Bank0. The remaining Banks are selected with the help of RS0 and
RS1 bits of PSW Register.

(ii) 16 bytes of bit addressable area and

(iii) 80 bytes of general purpose area (Scratch pad memory) as shown in the diagram below. This
area is also utilized by the microcontroller as a storage area for the operating stack.

The 32 bytes of RAM from address 00 H to 1FH are used as working registers organized as four
banks of eight registers each.The registers are named as R0-R7 .Each register can be addressed
by its name or by its RAM address.

For EX : MOV A, R7 or MOV R7,#05H

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Internal ROM (On –chip ROM): The 8051 microcontroller has 4kB of on chip ROM but it can
be extended up to 64kB.This ROM is also called program memory or code memory. The CODE
segment is accessed using the program counter (PC) for opcode fetches and by DPTR for data.
The external ROM is accessed when the EA(active low) pin is connected to ground or the contents
of program counter exceeds 0FFFH.When the Internal ROM address is exceeded the 8051
automatically fetches the code bytes from the external program memory.

SPECIAL FUNCTION REGISTERS (SFRs) : In 8051 microcontroller there certain registers

which uses the RAM addresses from 80h to FFh and they are meant for certain specific operations
.These registers are called Special function registers (SFRs).Some of these registers are bit
addressable also.

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The list of SFRs and their functional names are given below. In these SFRs some of them are
related to I/O ports (P0,P1,P2 and P3) and some of them are meant for control operations
(TCON,SCON, PCON..) and remaining are the auxillary SFRs, in the sense that they don't directly
configure the 8051.

S.No Symbol Name of SFR Address (Hex)

1 ACC* Accumulator 0E0

2 B* B-Register 0F0

3 PSW* Program Status word register 0DO

4 SP Stack Pointer Register 81

5 DPL Data pointer low byte 82

DPTR DPH Data pointer high byte 83

6 P0* Port 0 80

P1* Port 1 90

8 P2* Port 2 0A

9 P3* Port 3 0B

10 IP* Interrupt Priority control 0B8

11 IE* Interrupt Enable control 0A8

12 TMOD Tmier mode register 89

13 TCON* Timer control register 88

14 TH0 Timer 0 Higher byte 8C

15 TL0 Timer 0 Lower byte 8A

16 TH1 Timer 1Higher byte 8D

17 TL1 Timer 1 lower byte 8B

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 18 SCON* Serial control register 98

19 SBUF Serial buffer register 99

20 PCON Power control register 87

The * indicates the bit addressable SFRs

Table:SFRs of 8051 Microcontroller

PARALLEL I /O PORTS :

The 8051 microcontroller has four parallel I/O ports , each of 8-bits .So, it provides the user 32
I/O lines for connecting the microcontroller to the peripherals. The four ports are P0 (Port 0),
P1(Port1) ,P2(Port 2) and P3 (Port3). Upon reset all the ports are output ports. In order to make

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them input, all the ports must be set i.e a high bit must be sent to all the port pins. This is normally
done by the instruction “SETB”.
Ex: MOV A,#0FFH ; A = FF
MOV P0,A ; make P0 an input port
PORT 0:
Port 0 is an 8-bit I/O port with dual purpose. If external memory is used, these port pins are used
for the lower address byte address/data (AD0-AD7), otherwise all bits of the port are either input
or output.. Unlike other ports, Port 0 is not provided with pull-up resistors internally ,so for PORT0
pull-up resistors of nearly 10k are to be connected externally as shown in the fig.2.
Dual role of port 0: Port 0 can also be used as address/data bus(AD0-AD7), allowing it to be
used for both address and data. When connecting the 8051 to an external memory, port 0 provides
both address and data. The 8051 multiplexes address and data through port 0 to save the pins. ALE
indicates whether P0 has address or data. When ALE = 0, it provides data D0-D7, and when ALE
=1 it provides address and data with the help of a 74LS373 latch.

Port 1: Port 1 occupies a total of 8 pins (pins 1 through 8). It has no dual application and acts only
as input or output port. In contrast to port 0, this port does not need any pull-up resistors since
pull-up resistors connected internally. Upon reset, Port 1 is configured as an output port. To
configure it as an input port , port bits must be set i.e a high bit must be sent to all the port pins.
This is normally done by the instruction “SETB”. For Ex :

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MOV A, #0FFH ; A=FF HEX

MOV P1,A ; make P1 an input port by writing 1’s to all of its pins

Port 2 : Port 2 is also an eight bit parallel port. (pins 21- 28). It can be used as input or output
port. As this port is provided with internal pull-up resistors it does not need any external pull-up
resistors. Upon reset, Port 2 is configured as an output port. If the port is to be used as input port,
all the port bits must be made high by sending FF to the port. For ex,

MOV A, #0FFH ; A=FF hex

MOV P2, A ; make P2 an input port by writing all 1’s to it

Dual role of port 2 : Port2 lines are also associated with the higher order address lines A8-A15.
In systems based on the 8751, 8951, and DS5000, Port2 is used as simple I/O port.. But, in 8031-
based systems, port 2 is used along with P0 to provide the 16-bit address for the external memory.
Since an 8031 is capable of accessing 64K bytes of external memory, it needs a path for the 16
bits of the address. While P0 provides the lower 8 bits via A0-A7, it is the job of P2 to provide bits
A8-A15 of the address. In other words, when 8031 is connected to external memory, Port 2 is used
for the upper 8 bits of the 16 bit address, and it cannot be used for I/O operations.

PORT 3 : Port3 is also an 8-bit parallel port with dual function.( pins 10 to 17). The port pins can
be used for I/O operations as well as for control operations. The details of these additional
operations are given below in the table. Port 3 also do not need any external pull-up resistors as
they are provided internally similar to the case of Port2 & Port 1. Upon reset port 3 is configured
as an output port . If the port is to be used as input port, all the port bits must be made high by
sending FF to the port. For ex,

MOV A, #0FFH ; A= FF hex

MOV P3, A ; make P3 an input port by writing all 1’s to it

Alternate Functions of Port 3 : P3.0 and P3.1 are used for the RxD (Receive Data) and TxD
(Transmit Data) serial communications signals. Bits P3.2 and P3.3 are meant for external
interrupts. Bits P3.4 and P3.5 are used for Timers 0 and 1 and P3.6 and P3.7 are used to provide
the write and read signals of external memories connected in 8031 based systems

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 S.No Port 3 bit Pin No Function
1 P3.0 10 RxD

2 P3.1 11 TxD

3 P3.2 12

4 P3.3 13

5 P3.4 14 T0

6 P3.5 15 T1

7 P3.6 16
8 P3.7 17
Table: PORT 3 alternate functions

Interrupt Structure: An interrupt is an external or internal event that disturbs the

microcontroller to inform it that a device needs its service. The program which is associated with
the interrupt is called the interrupt service routine (ISR) or interrupt handler. Upon receiving
the interrupt signal the Microcontroller , finish current instruction and saves the PC on stack.
Jumps to a fixed location in memory depending on type of interrupt Starts to execute the interrupt
service routine until RETI (return from interrupt)Upon executing the RETI the microcontroller
returns to the place where it was interrupted. Get pop PC from stack

The 8051 microcontroller has FIVE interrupts in addition to Reset. They are

• Timer 0 overflow Interrupt

• Timer 1 overflow Interrupt

• External Interrupt 0(INT0)

• External Interrupt 1(INT1)

• Serial Port events (buffer full, buffer empty, etc) Interrupt

Each interrupt has a specific place in code memory where program execution (interrupt service
routine) begins.

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 • External Interrupt 0: 0003 H

• Timer 0 overflow: 000B H

• External Interrupt 1: 0013 H

• Timer 1 overflow: 001B H

• Serial Interrupt : 0023 H

Upon reset all Interrupts are disabled & do not respond to the Microcontroller. These interrupts
must be enabled by software in order for the Microcontroller to respond to them. This is done by
an 8-bit register called Interrupt Enable Register (IE).

Interrupt Enable Register :

◼ EA : Global enable/disable. To enable the interrupts this bit must be set High.

◼ --- : Undefined-reserved for future use.

◼ ET2 : Enable /disable Timer 2 overflow interrupt.

◼ ES : Enable/disable Serial port interrupt.

◼ ET1 : Enable /disable Timer 1 overflow interrupt.

◼ EX1 : Enable/disable External interrupt1.

◼ ET0 : Enable /disable Timer 0 overflow interrupt.

◼ EX0 : Enable/disable External interrupt0

Upon reset the interrupts have the following priority.(Top to down). The interrupt with the highest
PRIORITY gets serviced first.

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 1. External interrupt 0 (INT0)

2. Timer interrupt0 (TF0)

3. External interrupt 1 (INT1)

4. Timer interrupt1 (TF1)

5. Serial communication (RI+TI)

Priority can also be set to “high” or “low” by 8-bit IP register.- Interrupt priority register

IP.7: reserved

IP.6: reserved

IP.5: Timer 2 interrupt priority bit (8052 only)

IP.4: Serial port interrupt priority bit

IP.3: Timer 1 interrupt priority bit

IP.2: External interrupt 1 priority bit

IP.1: Timser 0 interrupt priority bit

IP.0: External interrupt 0 priority bit

TIMERS in 8051 Microcontrollers : The 8051 microcontroller has two 16-bit timers
Timer 0 (T0) and Timer 1(T1) which can be used either to generate accurate time delays or as
event counters. These timers are accessed as two 8-bit registers TLO, THO & TL1 ,TH1 because
the 8051 microcontroller has 8-bit architecture.

TIMER 0 : The Timer 0 is a 16-bit register and can be treated as two 8-bit registers (TL0 & TH0)
and these registers can be accessed similar to any other registers like A,B or R1,R2,R3 etc…

Ex : The instruction Mov TL0,#07 moves the value 07 into lower byte of Timer0.

Similarly Mov R5,TH0 saves the contents of TH0 in the R5 register.

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TIMER 1 : The Timer 1 is also a 16-bit register and can be treated as two 8-bit registers (TL1 &
TH1) and these registers can be accessed similar to any other registers like A,B or R1,R2,R3 etc…

Ex : The instruction MOV TL1,#05 moves the value 05 into lower byte of Timer1.

Similarly MOV R0,TH1 saves the contents of TH1 in the R0 register

TMOD Register : The various operating modes of both the timers T0 and T1 are set by an 8-bit
register called TMOD register. In this TMOD register the lower 4-bits are meant for Timer 0 and
the higher 4-bits are meant for Timer1.

GATE: This bit is used to start or stop the timers by hardware .When GATE= 1 ,the timers can be
started / stopped by the external sources. When GATE= 0, the timers can be started or stopped by
software instructions like SETB TR0 or SETB TR1

C/T (clock/Timer) : This bit decides whether the timer is used as delay generator or event
counter. When C/T = 0 ,the Timer is used as delay generator and if C/T=1 the timer is used as
an event counter. The clock source for the time delay is the crystal frequency of 8051.

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M1,M0 (Mode) : These two bits are the timer mode bits. The timers of the 8051 can be configured
in three modes.Mode0, Mode1 and Mode2.The selection and operation of the modes is shown
below.

S.No M0 M1 Mode Operation

1 0 0 0 13-bit Timer mode
8-bit Timer/counter. THx with TLx as 5-bit
prescalar
2 0 1 1 16-bit Timer mode.16-bit timer /counter
without pre-scalar
3 1 0 2 8-bit auto reload. THx contains a value that
is to be loaded into TLx each time it
overflows
4 1 1 3 Split timer mode

PIN Diagram of 8051 Microcontroller : The 8051 microcontroller is available as a 40 pin DIP
chip and it works at +5 volts DC. Among the 40 pins , a total of 32 pins are allotted for the four
parallel ports P0,P1,P2 and P3 i.e each port occupies 8-pins .The remaining pins are VCC, GND,
XTAL1, XTAL2, RST, EA ,PSEN.

XTAL1,XTAL2: These two pins are connected to Quartz crystal oscillator which runs the on-
chip oscillator. The quartz crystal oscillator is connected to the two pins along with a capacitor of
30pF as shown in the circuit. If we use a source other than the crystal oscillator, it will be
connected to XTAL1 and XTAL2 is left unconnected.

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RST: The RESET pin is an input pin and it is an active high pin. When a high pulse is applied to
this pin the microcontroller will reset and terminate all activities. Upon reset all the registers except
PC will reset to 0000 Value and PC register will reset to 0007 value.

(External Access): This pin is an active low pin. This pin is connected to ground when
microcontroller is accessing the program code stored in the external memory and connected to
Vcc when it is accessing the program code in the on chip memory. This pin should not be left
unconnected.

(Program Store Enable) : This is an output pin which is active low. When the
microcontroller is accessing the program code stored in the external ROM ,this pin is connected
to the OE (Output Enable) pin of the ROM.

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ALE (Address latch enable): This is an output pin, which is active high. When connected to
external memory , port 0 provides both address and data i.e address and data are multiplexed
through port 0 .This ALE pin will demultiplex the address and data bus .When the pin is High ,
the AD bus will act as address bus otherwise the AD bus will act as Data bus.

P0.0- P0.7(AD0-AD7) : The port 0 pins multiplexed with Address/data pins .If the microcontroller
is accessing external memory these pins will act as address/data pins otherwise they are used for
Port 0 pins.

P2.0- P2.7(A8-A15) : The port2 pins are multiplexed with the higher order address pins .When
the microcontroller is accessing external memory these pins provide the higher order address byte
otherwise they act as Port 2 pins.

P1.0- P1.7 :These 8-pins are dedicated for Port1 to perform input or output port operations.

P3.0- P3.7 :These 8-pins are meant for Port3 operations and also for some control operations like
Read,Write,Timer0,Timer1 ,INT0,INT1 ,RxD and TxD

ADDRESSING MODES OF 8051 :

The way in which the data operands are accessed by different instructions is known as the
addressing modes. There are various methods of denoting the data operands in the instruction. The
8051 microcontroller supports mainly 5 addressing modes. They are

1.Immediate addressing mode

2.Direct Addressing mode

3.Register addressing mode

4. Register Indirect addressing mode

5.Indexed addressing mode

Immediate addressing mode : The addressing mode in which the data operand is a constant and
it is a part of the instruction itself is known as Immediate addressing mode. Normally the data
must be preceded by a # sign. This addressing mode can be used to transfer the data into any of
the registers including DPTR.

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Ex: MOV A , # 27 H : The data (constant) 27 is moved to the accumulator register

ADD R1 ,#45 H : Add the constant 45 to the contents of the accumulator

MOV DPTR ,# 8245H :Move the data 8245 into the data pointer register.

MOV P1,#21 H

Direct addressing mode: The addressing mode in which the data operand is in the RAM location
(00 -7FH) and the address of the data operand is given in the instruction is known as Direct
addressing mode. The direct addressing mode uses the lower 128 bytes of Internal RAM and the
SFRs

MOV R1, 42H : Move the contents of RAM location 42 into R1 register

MOV 49H,A : Move the contents of the accumulator into the RAM location 49.

ADD A, 56H : Add the contents of the RAM location 56 to the accumulator

Register addressing mode :The addressing mode in which the data operand to be manipulated
lies in one of the registers is known as register addressing mode.

MOV A,R0 : Move the contents of the register R0 to the accumulator

ADD A,R6 :Add the contents of R6 register to the accumulator

MOV P1, R2 : Move the contents of the R2 register into port 1

MOV R5, R2 : This is invalid .The data transfer between the registers is not allowed.

Register Indirect addressing mode :The addressing mode in which a register is used as a pointer
to the data memory block is known as Register indirect addressing mode.

MOV A,@ R0 :Move the contents of RAM location whose address is in R0 into A (accumulator)

MOV @ R1 , B : Move the contents of B into RAM location whose address is held by R1

When R0 and R1 are used as pointers, they must be preceded by @ sign

One of the advantages of register indirect addressing mode is that it makes accessing the
data more dynamic than static as in the case of direct addressing mode.

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Indexed addressing mode : This addressing mode is used in accessing the data elements of
lookup table entries located in program ROM space of 8051.

Ex : MOVC A,@ A+DPTR

The 16-bit register DPTR and register A are used to form the address of the data element stored in
on-chip ROM. Here C denotes code .In this instruction the contents of A are added to the 16-bit
DPTR register to form the 16-bit address of the data operand.

8051-SERIAL COMMUNICATION :

Basics of Serial communication

Data transfer between two electronic devices (Ex Between a computer and microcontroller or a
peripheral device) is generally done in two ways

(i).Serial data Transfer and

(ii).Parallel data Transfer

Serial communication uses only one or two data lines to transfer data and is generally used for
long distance communication. In serial communication the data is sent as one bit at a time in a
timed sequence on a single wire. Serial Communication takes place in two methods, Asynchronous
data Transfer and Synchronous data Transfer.

Serial Data Transfer

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Asynchronous data transfer allows data to be transmitted without the sender having to send a
clock signal to the receiver. Instead, special bits will be added to each word in order to synchronize
the sending and receiving of the data. When a word is given to the UART for Asynchronous
transmissions, a bit called the "Start Bit" is added to the beginning of each word that is to be
transmitted. The Start Bit is used to alert the receiver that a word of data is about to be sent, and to
force the clock in the receiver into synchronization with the clock in the transmitter.

Serial data transmission

After the Start Bit, the individual bits of the word of data are sent .Here each bit in the word is
transmitted for exactly the same amount of time as all of the other bits. When the entire data word
has been sent, the transmitter may add a Parity Bit that the transmitter generates. The Parity bit
may be used by the receiver to perform simple error checking. Then at least one Stop Bit is sent
by the transmitter. If the Stop Bit does not appear when it is supposed to, the UART considers the
entire word to be corrupted and will report a Framing Error.

Baud rate is a measurement of transmission speed in asynchronous communication , it represents

the number of bits/sec that are actually being sent over the serial link. The Baud count includes
the overhead bits Start, Stop and Parity that are generated by the sending UART and removed by
the receiving UART.

In the Synchronous data transfer method the receiver knows when to “read” the next bit
coming from the sender. This is achieved by sharing a clock between sender and receiver. In most
forms of serial Synchronous communication, if there is no data available at a given time to
transmit, a fill character will be sent instead so that data is always being transmitted. Synchronous
communication is usually more efficient because only data bits are transmitted between sender and
receiver, however it will be more costly because extra wiring and control circuits are required to
share a clock signal between the sender and receiver.

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Devices that use serial cables for their communication are split into two categories.

1. DTE (Data Terminal Equipment). Examples of DTE are computers, printers & terminals.
2. DCE (Data Communication Equipment). Example of DCE is modems.

Parallel Data Transfer :

Parallel communication uses multiple wires (bus) running parallel to each other, and can transmit
data on all the wires simultaneously. i.e all the bits of the byte are transmitted at a time. So, speed
of the parallel data transfer is extremely high compared to serial data transfer. An 8-bit parallel
data transfer is 8-times faster than serial data transfer. Hence with in the computer all data transfer
is mainly based on Parallel data transfer. But only limitation is due to the high cost ,this method is
limited to only short distance communications.

Differences between Serial data transfer and Parallel data transfer

S.No Serial Communication Parallel Communication

1 Data is transmitted bit after the bit in a Data is transmitted simultaneously

single line through group of lines(Bus)

2 Data congestion takes place No, Data congestion

3 Low speed transmission High speed transmission

4 Implementation of serial links is not an Parallel data links are easily

easy task. implemented in hardware

5. In terms of transmission channel costs It is more expensive

such as data bus cable length, data bus
buffers, interface connectors, it is less
expensive

6 No , crosstalk problem Crosstalk creates interference between

the parallel lines.

7 No effect of inter symbol interference and Parallel ports suffer extremely from
noise inter-symbol interference (ISI) and
noise, and therefore the data can be
corrupted over long distances.

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 8 The bandwidth of serial wires is much The bandwidth of parallel wires is much
higher. lower.

9 Serial interface is more flexible to Parallel data transfer mechanism rely

upgrade , without changing the hardware on hardware resources and hence not
flexible to upgrade.

10 Serial communication work effectively Parallel buses are hard to run at high
even at high frequencies. frequencies.

SERIAL COMMUNICATION IN 8051 MICROCONTROLLER

The 8051 has two pins for transferring and receiving data by serial communication. These two pins
are part of the Port3(P3.0 &P3.1) .These pins are TTL compatible and hence they require a line
driver to make them RS232 compatible .Max232 chip is one such line driver in use. Serial
communication is controlled by an 8-bit register called SCON register,it is a bit addressable
register.

SCON (Serial control) register :

SM0 SCON.7 Serial port mode selector

SM1 SCON.6 Serial port mode selector

SM2 SCON.5 Used for multiprocessor mode communication

(not applicable for 8051)

REN SCON.4 Receive enable. Set or cleared by making this bit

either 1 or 0 foe enable /disable reception.

TB8 SCON.3 9th data bit transmitted in modes 2 and 3

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RB8 SCON.2 9th data bit received in modes 2 and 3.it is not
used in mode 0 & mode 1.If SM2 = 0 RB8 is the
stop bit .

TI SCON.1 Transmit interrupt flag

RI SCON.0 Receive interrupt flag.

◼ M0 , SM1 : These two bits of SCON register determine the framing of data by specifying
the number of bits per character and start bit and stop bits. There are 4 serial modes.

SM0 SM1

0 0 : Serial Mode 0

0 1 : Serial Mode 1, 8 bit data, 1 stop bit, 1 start bit

1 0 : Serial Mode 2

1 1 : Serial Mode 3

◼ REN (Receive Enable) also referred as SCON.4. When it is high,it allows the 8051 to
receive data on the RxD pin. So to receive and transfer data REN must be set to 1.When
REN=0,the receiver is disabled. This is achieved as below

SETB SCON.4

& CLR SCON.4

◼ TI (Transmit interrupt) is the D1 bit of SCON register. When 8051 finishes the transfer of
8-bit character, it raises the TI flag to indicate that it is ready to transfer another byte. The
TI bit is raised at the beginning of the stop bit.

◼ RI (Receive interrupt) is the D0 bit of the SCON register. When the 8051 receives data
serially ,via RxD, it gets rid of the start and stop bits and places the byte in the SBUF

◼ MICROCONTROLLER DEVELOPMENT TOOLS:

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◼ To develop an assembly language program we need certain program development tools.
An assembly language program consists of Mnemonics which are nothing but short
abbreviated English instructions given to the controller.The various development tools
required for Microcontroller programming are explained below.

◼ 1. Editor : An Editor is a program which allows us to create a file containing the assembly
language statements for the program. Examples of some editors are PC write Wordstar.
As we type the program the editor stores the ACSII codes for the letters and numbers in
successive RAM locations. If any typing mistake is done editor will alert us to correct it.
If we leave out a program statement an editor will let you move everything down and insert
a line. After typing all the program we have to save the program . This we call it as source
file. The next step is to process the source file with an assembler.

◼ Ex: Sample. asm

◼ 2.Assembler : An Assembler is used to translate the assembly language mnemonics into

machine language( i.e binary codes). When you run the assembler it reads the source file
of your program from where you have saved it. The assembler generates a filee with the
extension .hex. This file consists of hexadecimal values encoding a sequence of data and
their starting offset or absolute address.

◼ 3.Compiler : A compiler is a program which converts the high level language program
like “C” into binary or machine code. Using high level languages it is easy to manage
complex data structures which are often required for data manipulation. Because of its ease
, flexibility and debug options now a days the compilers have become very popular in the
market. Compilers like Keil ,Ride and IAR workbench are very popular.

◼ 3. Debugger/Simulator : A debugger is a program which allows execute the program,

and troubleshoot or debug it. The debugger allows to look into the contents of registers
and memory locations after the program runs. We can also change the contents of registers
and memory locations and rerun the program. Some debuggers allows to stop the program
after each instruction so that you can check or alter memory and register contents. This is
called single step debug. A debugger also allows to set a breakpoint at any point in the

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 program. If we insert a break point , the debugger will run the program up to the instruction
where the breakpoint is put and then stop the execution.

◼ A simulator is a software program which virtually executes the instructions similar

to a microcontroller and shows the results. This will help in evaluating the results without
committing any errors. By doing so we can detect the possible logic errors

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