Entry requirements

120 credits in science/engineering, of which 60 credits in computer science, including courses in computer architecture and imperative programming. Alternative: 120 credits in science/engineering, of which 60 credits within electrical engineering, including courses in analogue and digital electronics, and imperative programming. Proficiency in English equivalent to the Swedish upper secondary course English 6.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• independently design and implement an embedded system based on an eight bit microcontroller, taking into account energy conservation and possible software errors,
• program a microcontroller using C, including hardware configuration and interrupt service routines,
• manage parallel processes with different priority and real time constraints without the aid of an operating system,
• select data types and algorithms suitable for the architecture and instruction set of a given microcontroller,
• give a detailed description of limitations of the chosen system design,
• debug a microcontroller application using different tools.

Content

Typical architecture and internal units of a microcontroller, different types of memory. Interfacing of analogue and digital signals, including basics of electronics. Serial communications. Low level programming in C, drivers, interrupts service routines. Management of parallel processes without the aid of an operating system, process priority, timing analysis, finite state machines.

Instruction and register sets and addressing modes for a given microcontroller family.

Efficiency aspects on different data types and code snippets in C. Development tools.

Planning and realisation of a microcontroller-based project.

Instruction

Lectures, laboratory work and project supervision.

Assessment

Oral examination (5 credits). Oral and written presentation of project (2 credits). Written report (2 credits). On-site demonstration of laborations (1 credit).

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the disability coordinator of the university.