ATTINY85-15ST1

Introduction of ATTINY 85-15ST1

The ATTINY 85-15ST1 is an 8-bit AVR-based microcontroller unit (MCU) from the Attiny series, produced by Microchip Technology. It has an 8-bit core architecture and follows the RISC instruction set. It also has an 8 KB ISP program flash memory, 512 bytes EEPROM, 512 bytes SRAM, one 8-channel 10-bit ADC, one comparator, one USI for SPI/TWI, one PWM, one ADC, and one UART.

Application fields of ATTINY 85-15ST1

The main application fields of the ATTINY 85-15ST1 are energy-efficient applications as its sleep mode current consumption is as low as 0.5 µA. It is also suitable for home automation, gaming and entertainment, wireless sensor networks, industrial data acquisition, and medical applications.

Working principle of ATTINY 85-15ST1

The ATTINY 85-15ST1 operates with a maximum frequency of 8 MHz and an operating voltage of 2.7V-5.5V. Its basics working principle is that it fetches instructions (or instructions) from the program memory and then performs the operations it has been told to do on certain data values. The instruction set is based on the RISC architecture.

In a microcontroller, the code to be executed is stored in a non-volatile memory, usually Flash Memory. When the application starts, the code is loaded from the Flash Memory and is stored in the internal program memory (Internal ROM or ROM) of the processor. The program counter is set to the beginning of the program and the execution of the program commences.

The processor then reads and interprets the instructions in the program memory and executes them. The processor has an ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) which performs calculations and logical operations. Data used in calculations is taken from the internal memory (SRAM) of the processor and placed in the ALU. Depending on the type of instruction, the ALU performs different type of operations and load the output data back in the memory or any other I/O port of the processor.

In addition to the basic microcontroller functions, the ATTINY 85-15ST1 also features many peripheral features like built-in Watchdog Timer and Reentrant Software Interrupt Function. It also supports SPI, USI and I2C bus interfaces and has an on-chip Debug support. Its external clock option with clock rate of up to 8MHz provides the processor with more power efficiency.

Conclusion

The ATTINY 85-15ST1 is a compact and power efficient 8-bit AVR microcontroller unit, suitable for low-power applications. It is low cost and can be used in various industrial application fields such as home automation, gaming and entertainment, wireless sensor networks, industrial data acquisition and medical applications. Its 8MHz external clock option and on-chip features like built-in Watchdog Timer, Reentrant Software Interrupt Function and I2C bus interfaces renders it suitable for embedded systems.