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Lesson 2 .... Types of Memory.

Friday, February 19, 2010

1-On-Chip Memory:

On-chip memory is really one of two types: Internal RAM and Special Function Register (SFR) memory.



♣ Internal RAM:
it is the most flexible in terms of reading, writing, and modifying its contents. Internal RAM is volatile.

♣ Special Function Register (SFR) :
Special Function Registers (SFRs) are areas of memory that control specific functionality of the 8051 processor. For example, four SFRs permit access to the 8051s 32 input/output lines. Another SFR allows a program to read or write to the 8051s serial port. Other SFRs allow the user to set the serial baud rate, control and access timers, and configure the 8051s interrupt system.

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2-External RAM:
As an obvious opposite of Internal RAM, most of microcontrollers also supports what is called External RAM. As the name suggests, External RAM is any random access memory which is found off-chip. Since the memory is off-chip it is not as flexible in terms of accessing, and is also slower. For example, to increment an Internal RAM location by 1 requires only 1 instruction and 1 instruction cycle. To increment a 1-byte value stored in External RAM requires 4 instructions and 7 instruction cycles. In this case, external memory is 7 times slower!

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3-Code Memory:
Code memory is the memory that holds the actual program that is to be run. This memory has different values from one microcontrolle to another and comes in many shapes and sizes: Code memory may be found on-chip, either burned into the microcontroller as ROM or EPROM. Code may also be stored completely off-chip in an external ROM or, more commonly, an external EPROM. Flash RAM is also another popular method of storing a program. Various combinations of these memory types may also be used.


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