Specifications

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The MPLAB Integrated Development Environment and the MPLAB C30 C
Compiler are ideal for our project because it allows us to program the
microcontroller in the C language. The C language is a high level language
which makes programming the microcontroller much easier. The C language is
the language that we are most familiar with as a group, and therefore this is ideal
for our programming needs.
The Explorer 16 Development Board is compatible with many daughter boards
that can be connected to the Explorer 16 to program the desired chip. For our
project we will be purchasing daughter boards form Microchip. Both the ZigBee
wireless chip and the 802.11b wireless chip have daughter boards available
through Microchip that we will purchase in order to program these devices.
Overall architecture of system:
The components that we will be purchasing use a modified Harvard architecture,
and therefore the microcontroller should also use this architecture. The Harvard
architecture describes a system with different pathways for instructions and data.
Most of the microprocessors we have researched that meet the specifications of
our main microcontroller use either the Harvard architecture, or Modified Harvard
architecture. Figure 6 below shows a block diagram for Harvard architecture.
Control
Unit
I/O
Instructions
Memory
Data
Memory
ALU
Figure 6 Harvard architecture
Cost:
The microcontroller we purchase should be the least expensive model that meets
the necessary requirements of our project. Most microcontrollers within the class
that we are going to implement are $10.00 or less and so we would like to stay
within the $0 - $10 range. Being between $0 and $10 dollars, the main
microcontroller is only a small percentage of the total cost of the system although
it is the most important component. The development board is much more
expensive than the microcontroller itself, but since we are using multiple parts