The lecturers strongly advises students who want to take this course have previously studied both "Digital Electronics" and "Electronic Components and Circuits". "Digital Electronics" covers combinational and sequential digital electronics, acquiring knowledge about the digital building blocks. The second, "Electronic Components and Circuits", it is important to know the basic electronic components and electronic wiring plate or breadboard test and evaluate its operation using basic tools and laboratory equipment. It is also very important that the student is able to program a computer application. Therefore, the Faculty strongly recommends the students to have passed subjects like "Programming", "Systems Programming" and "Systems Architecture". Another subject that can help students for this course is "Systems and Circuits", with allows the analysis of electronic circuits.

The main objective is that the student learns about microprocessor technology, and how to analyze and develop solutions based on such technology. The student will learn about microprocessors, their internal architecture, the use of microcontrollers and the most used peripherals. Programming will be done using C-language, using a semi-professional Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The student will also learn about how to debug solutions, in order to be able to detect errors and develop robust solutions. With all this in mind, the partial objectives are: - To know the basics of the different microprocessor internal architectures. - To learn the benefits of using microcontrollers. - To learn to use an IDE to develop microcontroller-based systems - To apply medium/high-level programming languages to develop solutions for microprocessors/microcontrollers - To learn to use the most common microcontroller peripherals. - To be able to analyze microprocessor-based solutions - To be able to develop microprocessor-based solutions

1. Introduction to microprocessor based digital systems 2. Software Development: Integrated Development Environment 2.1. C language integrated development environment. 2.2. Peripherals I/O Libraries 3. General Input/Output Pins 4. Exceptions and Interrupt Systems 5. Timers 6. Analog/Digital and Digital/Analog Conversion 7. Serial Asynchronous Communication 8. Serial Synchronous Communication 9. Additional functionalities: RTC, Watchdog, Power consumption, etc. 10. System design examples and analysis 11. Architecture of a microprocessor/microcontroller system. 11.1. Central Processing Unit (CPU). 11.2. Memory Structure. 11.3. Interface Modules. 12. Machine level programming: Assembler. 12.1. Machine instructions and addressing modes.

The above course competences and skills provide skills within the program outcomes, through different activities. For each program outcome, we briefly describe the activities provided within the course: - In the course, exercises are held where students have to complete/develop their programs to meet requirements. They are asked to interpret electronic circuit schematics, block diagrams and flowcharts. - The course includes a laboratory design exercise, with an initial set of specifications that the students must meet by the end of the term. The problem is a manageable version of an electronic system design, where the students must solve using the given resources (Microcontroller Development Board, Debugger, peripherals). - Design and analysis examples are presented to the students as guidance on good programming practices and electronic design techniques, showing how to apply specific peripherals to solve different problems. - The students must be able to comment their program code appropriately, develop program flow diagrams, use schematic capture programs for their designs. This will be evaluated comprehensively in laboratory works. - The students are required to work using engineering tools such as a Microcontroller Integrated Development Environment (IDE) program, use a Development Board, as well as a Debugger.