AVR microcontrollers: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:31, 31 August 2004

Revision as of 18:29, 7 October 2004

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The '''Atmel AVR''' is a family of [[RISC]] [[microcontroller]]s from [[Atmel]]. The AVR architecture was conceived by two'''A'''lf studentsEgil Bogen and '''V'''egard Wollan ('''AV'''R) at the [[Norwegian Institute of Technology]] (NTH) and further refined and developed at '''Atmel Norway''', the Atmel daughter company founded by the two chip architects.

Unlike the [[PIC microcontroller|PIC]], the AVR [[instruction set]] is strictly orthogonal and compatible across models. The AVR was designed at the outset for efficient execution of [[compiler|compiled]] [[C programming language|C]] code. Thus some instructions, such as '<code>add immediate</code>', are strangely missing (you have to '<code>subtract immediate</code>' the [[complement]] instead), while others, such as '<code>compare with carry</code>', are included. Like the PIC, it has a dedicated [[hobbyist]] following (exemplified by the ''AVRFreaks'' Internet forum), largely due to the existence of inexpensive/free development tools, for instance a port of the GNU [[GNU Compiler Collection|GCC]] tools.