Informative and Nice FPGA Tutorial for beginners

Posted by Omkar on May 20, 2009

I stumbled upon following FPGA Tutorial while surfing the web. It is great for beginners, who don’t know what FPGAs are. This Tutorial covers basic concepts of PLDs,CPLDs and FPGAs. It then gives overview of internal architecture of FPGA. Tutorial also gives overview about design considerations, use of Xilinx tools. In short it covers all basics of FPGAs based design flow using Xilinx FPGAs and software tools.

Click here to watch.

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on May 20, 2009 at 10:28 am and is filed under Programmable Logic. Tagged: FPGA Tutorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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EAGLE Library – List of most commonly used electronics components

Posted by Omkar on October 9, 2009

12 Nov 2009 – Post Updated

EAGLE is preferred by many hobbyists and professionals all over the world. EAGLE comes with huge component library, however to find the desired part in this library is really difficult for beginners. Generally we need resistors, capacitors, voltage regulators, pin headers, connectors, etc when designing any electronic PCB. Following is the list of EAGLE library part names of most commonly used electronics components. This list will be very handy when you have just started using the EAGLE and don’t know which part to select and from which library.

Passive components:

Ceramic disc capacitors
having 2.54mm lead spacing
(e.g.: 27pf, 100nf)

Ceramic disc capacitors
having 5.08mm lead spacing
(e.g.: 220nf)

Electrolytic capacitors, values less than 10uF and voltage rating upto 50V

78xx Voltage regulator – Vertical

D type 9 pin Serial connector, PCB Mountable

Passive components SMD:

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on October 9, 2009 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Electronics. Tagged: component library, EAGLE, Electronic Components, library. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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AVR fuse bits settings

Posted by Omkar on April 3, 2010

Setting AVR fuse bits correctly is most important and equally confusing part for many beginners. In this post I have presented some of the ready to use fuse bit settings and corresponding batch files, which can be used with AVRdude.

Link for downloading avrdude batch files (to be used with USBasp) is given at the end of this post.

Factory Default Settings for ATmega16/32.

H fuse:
JTAG            : Enabled
OCD             : Disabled
SPI Programming : Enabled
CKOPT           : Unprogrammed
EEPROM Preserve : Unprogrammed (EEPROM not preserved)
BOOT size       : 1024 words
Reset Vector    : User flash code

L fuse:
Brown-out level : 2.7V
Brown-out detect: Disabled
Startup timing  : Default
Clock Source    : Internal, 1MHz

External Crystal upto 16MHz, JTAG disabled. Rest of the options : Default.Internal 8MHz oscillator, JTAG disabled. Rest of the options : Default.
Factory Default Settings for ATmega8.

H fuse:
Reset Disabled  : Unprogrammed (Reset pin is enabled)
Watchdog        : Off
SPI Programming : Enabled
CKOPT           : Unprogrammed
EEPROM Preserve : Unprogrammed (EEPROM not preserved)
BOOT size       : 1024 words
Reset Vector    : User flash code

L fuse:
Brown-out level : 2.7V
Brown-out detect: Disabled
Startup timing  : Default
Clock Source    : Internal, 1MHz

External Crystal upto 16MHz. Rest of the options : Default.Factory Default Settings for ATtiny13.

H fuse:
Self programming: Disabled
debugWire       : Disabled
Brown-out detect: Disabled
Reset Disabled  : Unprogrammed (Reset pin is enabled)

L fuse:
SPI Programming : Enabled
EEPROM Preserve : Unprogrammed (EEPROM not preserved)
Watchdog        : Off
Clock div by 8  : Enabled
Startup timing  : Default
Clock Source    : Internal, 9.6MHz

Internal 4.8MHz oscillator, Divide clock by 8. Rest of the options : DefaultInternal 9.6MHz oscillator, clock is not divided by 8. Rest of the options : Default.

Fuse programming is most crucial and any mistake might lead to non-functioning AVR controller. I have also made DOS batch files, which can be used to apply above mentioned settings with AVRdude and USBasp. You can download these files from :

AVR Dude – DOS batch files for fuse bit settings using USBasp. Archive password : mega16

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S9BCR2RJ

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on April 3, 2010 at 7:43 pm and is filed under AVR microcontroller. Tagged: AVR Micocontroller, avrdude, Fuse bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 6 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 3 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 36 posts. There were 77 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 5mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was March 5th with 570 views. The most popular post that day was How to make simple Infrared Sensor Modules.

The top referring sites in 2010 were sonsivri.com, ashishd.wordpress.com, google.co.in, robotix.in, and roboticsindia.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for infrared sensor, ir transmitter and receiver, usbasp driver, led cathode, and usbasp.

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

How to make simple Infrared Sensor Modules February 2008
184 comments

AVR : Tutorial 2 : AVR – Input / Output February 2008
45 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

Make your own, ultra simple, universal AVR programmer !! October 2007
95 comments

AVRDude Tutorial : Burning hex files using USBasp and AVRdude April 2009
7 comments

Anode and Cathode of LED ! March 2008
14 comments

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on January 2, 2011 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Alert: Using RealView MDK 3.22 ? Switch to latest version

Posted by Omkar on July 11, 2009

I recently started working on ARM controllers. I have been using RealView MDK 3.22. However I noticed that, when I was trying to run my simple program involving UART peripheral, it was getting compiled but was not running when downloaded on uC.

The same program started working when I downloaded MDK 3.7. So if your programs are driving you nuts because of some strange reasons, which you are not able to figure out, then update to latest version.

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on July 11, 2009 at 10:23 pm and is filed under ARM. Tagged: ARM, RealView MDK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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AVR Development Board – mega16

Posted by Omkar on March 25, 2008

AVR Development Board
Low Cost AVR Development Board – ATmega16 / ATmega32 – v4.1

28 April 2011 – Prices updated

Board Features :

supports : mega16A/32A AVR uC. With easy to use ZIF socket.Pins headers are provided for all ports of uC, so that any signal can be tapped and board’s functionality can be extended.slot for crystal, so it can be changed. Default crystal 16MHz.LCD connector on PORTB with contrast control pot. 8 LEDs are also connected on PORTB for debugging purpose.On Board TSOP 1738 on PORTC.6, thus one can use remote control and get benefit of 30keys at the expense of single microcontroller pin.MAX232 provided for serial interface with PC.Two L293D motor driver ICs. Each one has 4 H bridges and capacity of 500mA per bridge. This can be used for driving 4 DC motors or 2 Stepper motor.One of the two L293D IC, is connected to PWM out pins (OC1A,OC1B). This can be used for motor control using PWM.Separate voltage regulator is provided for L293D. This helps you to provide any customary voltage to load.6 Voltage dividers for 6 ADC inputs. Helps you to measure almost any voltage levels even in excess of 5V. Best for robotics infra-red sensors.4 Tact switches(buttons) for user input.One Speaker for audio generation. By default connected on PORTC.6, but jumper can be opened and then speaker can be connected to any other pin using external wire.SPI bus connector with on board 3.3V supply generation. So that you can easily interface MMC/SD cards / flash memories or any other SPI device to uC.Supports In System Programming (ISP) using cable provided. PonyProg2000 can be used for burning programs into uC.NO SMD COMPONENTS. So that you can replace any component on the board with your desired ones.

Board Accessories:

In System Programming cable. Connects to printer port of PC.Serial cable, to connect to SERIAL port of PC.

FREE CD:

Contains…
- Evaluation version of CodeVisionAVR C compiler.(Supports upto 2KB of hex code).
- WinAVR Compiler
- Eclipse IDE with WinAVR plug-in
- PonyProg2000. For burning your hex files into microcontroller.
- Easy to understand and well commented sample programs.
- Datasheets of all components.
- Other useful resources like ATMEL’s application notes, etc.

USES :

- Best for project development.
- Best for autonomous robotics.
- For embedded system product development. In ready to ship projects, blank PCB can be ordered and only required components can be soldered.

PRICING:

UPDATE : 22 Dec 2010 :
Due to recent increase in electronics component prices and manufacturing costs, I have to increase the prices to sustain the activity. Still today, these boards are the cheapest ones compared to features and prices of other similar products.

** Board with custom combination of components, other than mentioned in above list, are also available.
* For board with ATmega32, add 50/- to above cost.
^ 10% or more, discount on the regular price will be given for students depending on the order quantity.

NOTE :
-  Shipping and handling charges will be from Rs. 90 to Rs. 150 depending on the location within India.
- Tutorials for C programming for AVR are not provided. However many sample programs are provided. They are easy to understand and self explanatory.

How to Buy :

- Drop me a mail at elecrom [a t] gmail [ d o t ] c o m

Snaps :

Protected under Creative Commons – Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives Works 2.5:

(Link for only Indian version of the license is given. If you are not from India, kindly refer to legal code of the license of respective country)

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on March 25, 2008 at 11:57 pm and is filed under AVR microcontroller, My Products. Tagged: ATmega16, Atmel AVR microcontroller, AVR Development Board, Development Board, embedded. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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USBasp tutorial: USBasp driver installation

Posted by Omkar on April 19, 2009

In this post we will see how to install windows driver for USBasp. Steps explained below are applicable for WindowsXP:

Download driver:

If you don’t have driver, windows drivers for USBasp can be downloaded from:
http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/usbasp.2009-02-28.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded archive into some directory.

Installing driver:

Step1:
Connect USBasp to USB port of your computer. New hardware found dialog box will appear.
-In this select ‘Install from a list or specific location’.
-Click ‘Next’.

Step2: 
- Select ‘Don’t search …’
- Click Next

Step3:
- Click ‘Have Disk’

 

Step4:
‘Install from disk’ dialog box will appear.
- Click ‘Browse’

Step5:
Now browse for ‘usbasp.inf’ file. This fill will be located in : \bin\win-driver.
- Browse and select the file and click ‘Open’.
- Click ‘OK’ to close the ‘Install from disk’ dialog box

Step6:
Now you should see ‘USBasp’  model list.
- Select ‘USBasp’ from model list.
- Click ‘Next’

then windows will install the given driver.

 

Now your USBasp is ready for use.

To know how to use AVRdude and USBasp for writing hex files into microcontroller see the following post :
AVRDude Tutorial : Burning hex files using USBasp and AVRdude

Be the first to like this post.This entry was posted on April 19, 2009 at 6:37 pm and is filed under AVR microcontroller, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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