Microcontroller Concepts

One way of looking at a computer system is to consider the successive “translations” that occur from the high level code (a programming language such as C++) to the electrical signals that “communicate” with the hardware. A computer system can be broken down into multiple levels or layers to show the translation of a specific instruction into a form that can be directly pro­ cessed by the computer hardware. Such hierarchical levels are discussed in detail in Structured Computer Organization by A.S. Tanenbaum. This hierarchy is shown in Figure 2-1

Figure 2-1: “Layers” of a computer system.

Language translators such as compilers and assemblers translate highlevel code into machine code that can be executed by the processor. The primary focus of this book will be from the assembly and machine language level downward.