International Conference on Education Technology and Management Science (ICETMS 2013)

Reform on MCU Course of College Based on PROTEUS Platform

Hong He and Jin-Zhou ZHANG Lian LI and Hong-Jun WANG

Tianjin Key Laboratory for Control Theory and Tianjin Key Laboratory for Control Theory and
Application in Complicated Systems Application in Complicated System
Tianjin University of Technology Tianjin University of Technology
Heho604300@126.com

Abstract—The measures and proposals of teaching reform in MCU books, teaching content, teaching method and
the MCU course based on PROTEUS platform are introduced assessment method. PROTEUS simulation platform for
in this paper. The reform of theoretical teaching and practical microcontroller courses largely solves the MCU Course dull
teaching is presented. At present, many colleges teach ills and reduces the cost of experimental equipment. At the
theoretical knowledge and practical experiment separately in same time, this reform can stimulate the interest, initiative
the MCU course. In order to solve these common problems, a and creativity of student effectively on the design of
new teaching method combined theory and practice based on microcontroller, it also has a great significance to improve
PROTEUS platform is proposed. This new teaching method is the practical ability level and enhance employment
constructed by online teaching resource, experimental box,
competitiveness of students [2].
simulation platform and circuit emulator, it is mainly
implemented through a specific program. It has proved that II. INTRODUCTION OF PROTEUS PLATFORM
this new teaching method not only let students understand the
MCU principles well, but also improve their capability to As an EDA tool, PROTEUS simulation platform which
develop a systematic design. is produced by the Labcenter Electronic is widely used in the
word. Compared to other simulation tools, it has the
Keywords-Microcontroller; Theoretical Teaching; Practical following characteristics [3].
Teaching; PROTEUS Platform; • The PROTEUS platform provides many simulations
such as analog circuit simulation, digital circuit
I. INTRODUCTION simulation, microcontroller simulation and some
hardware simulations.
Microcontrollers with its high-level performance and
• The PROTEUS platform support many
reliability are widely used in the field of industrial control,
microcontrollers and microprocessors such as 68000
consumed instruments, medical instruments, military and
series, 8051 serials, AVR serials, PIC serials, Z80
aerospace industry, agriculture and some other applications.
serials, ARM7 and some other chips. It also can
At present, many colleges treat the MCU course as an
realize the debugging between microcontrollers and
important fundamental curriculum in the major of
PROTEUS simulation platform.
automation and electronics. The MCU course is a strong
practical curriculum and it requests some corresponding • The PROTEUS platform provides a lot of memory
experiments after learning some theoretical knowledge. and peripheral chips.
However, the microcontrollers teaching of many colleges • The simulation analysis of PROTEUS platform is
always focus on the introduction of principles and ignore the powerful as same as SPICE.
practical parts [1]. Although some colleges have the The Fig.1 shows the PROTEUS simulation platform.
experimental curriculum, its corresponding practical
experiments are relatively simple. Many students who are
lack of systematic training do not really know the whole
development process about microcontroller application, and
they also have not an emotional understanding of the theory
about microcontrollers. And someone even does not know
how to start when they have a specific program about
microcontroller application.
In this paper, PROTEUS platform is introduced to reform
the MCU teaching of college. In order to solve the common
problems in the MCU course, an idea which treat student as
a god and focus on the application capacity about
microcontroller of students is proposed, it put forward a new
teaching method which is composed of online resources, Figure 1. Proteus simulation platform
experimental box, soft simulation platform and circuit
emulator. Besides, we also can reform and research on the

© 2013. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 73

 III. MCU TEACHING BASED ON PROTEUS f clk
M = 216 − t × (1)
A. Disadvantages of Traditional MCU Teaching 12
Many universities in china adopt a traditional teaching
method which teaching first and then having a corresponding In the formula, t is the alarm time and f clk is the
experiment in the MCU course. At present, most traditional frequency of crystal. In order to meet the requirements of
microcontroller teaching use the MCS-51 serials as an design, the M is calculated as follow.
example to teach, it always introduces the fundamental
structure of microcontroller at the beginning of the teaching,
12 ×106
and then assembly language syntax, programming and some M = 216 − 0.05 × = 15536 (2)
designs of peripheral interface circuits are introduced in the 12
classroom. When talking about the teaching method,
traditional MCU course always combines theoretical The initial value M is transformed to 3CB0H in
teaching with a small amount of practical experiments, and hexadecimal form, so the register TH0 is 3CH and the
the practical experiments mostly are confirmatory register TL0 is B0H. At beginning of the system design, the
experiments and training experiments. Besides, the hours of hardware simulation is designed in the PROTEUS platform.
theoretical teaching are far more than the practical A microcontroller and a virtual oscilloscope are presented in
experiments in most universities. This traditional teaching the Fig.2.
method has the following disadvantages.
• The traditional teaching always introduce a large
amount of principles that make students feel boring
especially the programming syntax, and it also
difficult for students to understand what they have
listened.
• The traditional teaching always focuses on the
architecture of microcontroller with a small amount
of practical introduction.
• The traditional teaching always introduces hardware
and software separately, and it stress seldom that the
combination of hardware and software system
design, this makes that students are lack of
systematic thinking when they build a Figure 2. Simulation of Timer/Counter in PROTEUS
microcontroller application.
The microcontroller needs corresponding source code so
B. Theoretical Teaching Based on PROTEUS Platform that it can operate normally. In the system design, a soft
The teaching of microcontroller course involves both named KEIL is presented and a file with the hexadecimal
hardware and software knowledge, so we should understand style what the PROTEUS required is compiled and generated
and master the internal structure of microcontroller and the by the KEIL. The source code editing window is shown in
resources of peripheral interface based on the fundamental Fig.3. In the source code, it mainly adopts the interrupt mode
issue of engineering application in the view of engineers. of microcontroller to implement the requirements, the related
The following mainly talks about the timer and counter of registers about timer/counter are introduced and initiated first.
MCS-51 serials microcontroller which explains the reform The register TH0 and TL0 are 3CH and B0H, so the time
and experience of MCU theoretical teachings based on the alarmed by the timer is 50ms. The requirements of the design
PROTEUS platform. are implemented by the main function and the interrupt
The MCS-51 serials provide two 16-bit timer/counters function [5].
named timer 0, timer 1. These two time/counters have four
operational mode, they are mode 1, mode 2, mode 3 and
mode 4. Timer 0 is composed of the special register TH0 and
TL0, Timer 1 is composed of the special register TH1 and
TL1. Besides, the timer/counter is also controlled by the
timer mode control register (TMOD) and timer control
register (TCON). Due to timer 0 and timer 1 operate the
same way, the following example mainly talks about timer 0
and it is working in mode 1 [4].
This example requires that a pulse with its cycle is 100ms
is generated in the P1.0 of microcontroller. At first, the
counter initial value M is calculated by the following
formula.
Figure 3. The source code in KEIL

74
 In the PROTEUS simulation platform, we can download the interest in learning and initiative, some students even do
the hexadecimal file from the KEIL into the microcontroller. not do the preparation before the experiment and copy the
When the system simulation is working correctly, the procedures or experimental reports from others. Most
oscilloscope will display the result vividly. The output signal students think that they can not achieve adequate knowledge
of oscilloscope is shown in Fig.4. from this traditional practical teaching, and it is difficult for
As Fig.4 shows, the cycle of the simulation waveform is them to finish a specific program about microcontroller
100ms and its amplitude is 5V, so the simulation result meets application [8,9].
the requirements of the design. In order to solve the problems in the traditional practical
teaching, some measures should be taken into account. At
first, the experiment instructions only give the requirements
and some principle indications of the experiment to students,
it requests that students should design the hardware circuit
and the procedure independently with the purpose and
requirements of the experiment. Students can simulates the
circuit what they designed in the PROTEUS platform, and
then test the simulation in an experimental box to verify the
truth of simulation based on PROTEUS. With the traditional
practical teaching, the new teaching method mainly
encourages students to design the experiment independently
and develops the ability of solving problems. A calculator
based on 8051 is introduced to help analysis the reform on
Figure 4. The simulation result in PROTEUS practical teaching.

From the new teaching method above with multimedia AD[0..7]

equipments in the classroom, students can easily understand U1

AD[0..7] U3
RAM OCCUPIES LOCATIONS 0000-1FFF

U2
DISPLAY OCCUPIES LOCATIONS 8000-8003

LCD1
19

and master the design of hardware circuit, language 18

XTAL1

XTAL2
AD[0..7]

A[8..15]
A[8..15]
AD0 3
AD1 4
AD2 7
AD3 8
D0
D1
D2
D3
Q0
Q1
Q2
Q3
2
5
6
9
A0 10
A1
A2
A3
9
8
7
A0
A1
A2
A3
D0
D1
D2
D3
11 AD0
12 AD1
13 AD2
15 AD3
LCD16X1

programming and the whole process of a specific program.

30 AD4 13 12 A4 6 16 AD4
ALE D4 Q4 A4 D4

VDD
VSS

VEE
AD5 14 A5 17 AD5

RW
31 15 5

RS

D0
D1
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7
EA D5 Q5 A5 D5

E
9 29 AD6 17 16 A6 4 18 AD6
RST PSEN D6 Q6 A6 D6
AD7 18 19 A7 3 19 AD7
D7 Q7 A7 D7

1
2
3

4
5
6

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
A8 25
A8

In the PROTEUS platform, students can modify the circuit 1 A9 24

OE A9
P1.0 1 10 11 A10 21
P1.0 P3.0/RXD LE A10
P1.1 2 11 A11 23
P1.1 P3.1/TXD A11
P1.2 3 12 74LS373 A12 2

GND
VCC

A0
A1
P1.2 P3.2/INT0 A12
P1.3 4 13
P1.3 P3.3/INT1

and the source code freely until the system meets the P1.4 5 14 20

AD0
AD1
AD2
AD3
AD4
AD5
AD6
AD7
P1.4 P3.4/T0 CE
P1.5 6 15 26
P1.5 P3.5/T1 CS
7 16 27
P1.6 P3.6/WR WE
8 17 22
P1.7 P3.7/RD OE

requirements of the design. This new teaching method not 8051

PROGRAM=CALC.HEX

U5:C A15 1
U5:A
6264

4
U5:B

only improves the emotional acknowledge of students about 10

9
8 2

74LS00
3
5

74LS00
6

KEYPAD IS SCANNED VIA PORTS P2/P1

74LS00

microcontroller, but also stimulates the interest of students A12 1

U4:A
2
A
ON
7 8 9
C

on the MCU course. The reform of MCU course based on 7407

U4:B B +/- 4 5 6 MRC

PROTEUS platform has following advantages [6,7].

A13 3 4

7407 C % 1 2 3 M-

• The new teaching method teaches the theoretical

U4:C +
A14 5 6
D 0 . = M+
7407

6
knowledge in the view of engineer and combines A15 9
U4:D
8

P1.0

P1.1

P1.2

P1.3

P1.4

P1.5
7407

hardware circuit design with the programming. It

makes students understand theoretical knowledge Figure 5. Simulation of calculator based on 8051
well and improves the quality of teaching effectively.
• The new teaching method demonstrates the teaching As Fig.5 shows, the calculator is composed of a
example vividly and the multimedia equipments are microcontroller, a data latch, a static RAM, a keyboard, a
convenient for teachers to display what they have LCD and some other comments, so we should understand the
taught. Besides, the hardware circuit in the operation principles of them first. The latch is used to latch
PROTEUS and the programming in the KEIL can be the data from the shared data bus and address bus. The static
modified quickly so as to understand the book RAM provides additional data memory for the
deeply for students. microcontroller. The LCD is used to display the result
C. Practical Teaching Based on PROTEUS Platform calculated by the processor. With the PROTEUS platform,
students can design a systematic program independently and
The practical experiments of microcontroller course are put their ideas into practice. Only in this way can students
always the validation of theoretical knowledge in the understand what we have learned effectively.
practical teaching. The contents such as programming, usage
of I/O port, usage of interrupt and timer/counter, LCD and IV. CONCLUSION
keyboard using of the experiment are often pre-designed by As an excellent simulation tool, the virtual laboratory
experimental teachers, most students finish the experimental based on PROTEUS platform can achieve an effective
task only to complete the syllabus. Although this traditional practical teaching. PROTEUS platform improves the
teaching method can help student learn about the efficiency, quality and flexibility throughout design process
development kit of hardware and software and make students of microcontroller-based system, users can shorten the
familiarize the microcontroller area, it is useless for students development cycle and obtain huge rewards. The reform on
to develop the ability of practical application and stimulate MCU course of college based on PROTEUS platform

75
reflects the combination between theoretical teaching and [4] Yi-Gang ZHANG, Xi-Yuan PENG, Shou-Da JIANG, Li-Yan QIAO,
practical teaching, this new teaching method not only can New Design of Microcontroller Apllication based on MCS-51,
Harbin Institute of Technology Press, 2003.
improve the universal problems in the MCU course of
[5] Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M.Ritchie, The C Programming
colleges, but also can develop the practical ability and Language, China Machine Press, 2004.
innovation ability of students. In this paper, the reform of [6] Bo SU, Li WANG, Application of Proteus Virtual System Modelling
MCU course mainly aims at improving the quality of (VSM) in Teaching of Microcontroller, 2010 International
theoretical teaching and practical teaching, it enables Conference on E-Health Networking, Digital Ecosystems and
students to accept more practical training and more Technologies.2010, vol.2, pp.375-378.
comprehensive scientific research. [7] Ying LIU, Fu-Xiang GAO, Xia LI, Reserch on the Teaching Method
for Computer Interface Technology Course, 2009 International Forum
REFERENCES on Computer Science Technology and Applications, 2009, vol.3,
pp.104-106.
[1] Ying LIU, Fu-Xiang GAO, Xia LI, Reserch on the Teaching Method
for Computer Interface Technology Course, 2009 International Forum [8] Cika DraZen, Grundler Darko. Proteus Vitual System Modeling used
on Computer Science Technology and Applications, 2009, vol.3, for microcontroller education, 2010 Proceedings of the 33rd
pp.104-106. International Convention (MIPRO), 2010, pp.1034-1038.
[2] Bulent Koc A, Koc Caner, and Vatandas Mustafa, Software tools for [9] Lin Li-Jun, HU Ning-Ya, Building Virtual laboratory environment for
teaching microcontroller programming in agriculturalengineering Microcomputer principle & Interface Technology curriculum,
education, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Computer Science and Automation Engineering(CSAE) International
Engineers Annual International Meeting, 2008, vol 7, pp. 4422-4431. conference, 2011, vol.2, pp. 529-532.
[3] http://www.labcenter.co.uk/.

76