Microcontrollers

Lecture 1: Binary Review

 Binary review
The digital world operated in binary
In order to understand how a computer / microprocessor / memory /
microcontroller / … works, one definitely needs to know binary and
hexadecimal numbers
Understanding Binary Numbers
• Binary numbers are made of binary digits (bits):
– 0 and 1
• binary number:
– (1011)2 = 1x23 + 0x22 + 1x21 + 1x20 = (11)10
• What about fractions?
– (110.10)2 = 1x22 + 1x21 + 0x20 + 1x2-1 + 0x2-2 = 6.5
• Groups of eight bits are called a byte
– (1100 1001) 2
• Groups of four bits are called a nibble.
– (1101) 2

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Converting binary to decimal
• We can use the same trick to convert binary, or base 2, numbers to
decimal. This time, the weights are powers of 2.
– Example: 1101.01 in binary
1 1 0 1 . 0 1 Binary digits, or bits
23 22 21 20 2-1 2-2 Weights (in base 10)

– The decimal value is:

(1 x 23) + (1 x 22) + (0 x 21) + (1 x 20) + (0 x 2-1) + (1 x 2-2) =

8 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0.25 = 13.25

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Powers of 2 to MEMORIZE!!

Powers of 2: Useful abbreviations:

20 = 1 24 = 16 28 = 256 𝐾 = 210 = 1,024

21 = 2 25 = 32 29 = 512 M = 𝐾 2 = 220 = 1,048,576
22 = 4 26 = 64 210 = 1024 G = 𝐾 3 = 230 = 1,073,741,824
23 = 8 27 = 128

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Converting decimal to binary
• To convert a decimal integer into binary, keep dividing by 2 until the
quotient is 0. Collect the remainders in reverse order.
• To convert a fraction, keep multiplying the fractional part by 2 until it
becomes 0. Collect the integer parts in forward order.
• Example: 162.375:

162 / 2 = 81 rem 0 0.375 x 2 = 0.750

81 / 2 = 40 rem 1 0.750 x 2 = 1.500
40 / 2 = 20 rem 0 0.500 x 2 = 1.000
20 / 2 = 10 rem 0
10 / 2 =5 rem 0
5/2 =2 rem 1
2/2 =1 rem 0
1/2 =0 rem 1

• So, 162.37510 = 10100010.0112

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Base 16: Hexadecimal (Hex)
Hex symbols: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
2 methods to convert
• decimal to hex:
1. Convert decimal to bin then bin to hex
2. Convert directly dec to hex using successive
division
• Hex is easier to work with than binary
• more symbols can be used (easier to memorize)
• less confusing visually

• One hexadecimal digit ⇔ 4 binary digits (why?)

• B4 ≡ 1011 0100
• 2𝐷7𝐴 ≡ 0010 1101 0111 1010
• Easy conversion!! need to memorize the table →
 Binary and hexadecimal conversions
• Converting from hexadecimal to binary is easy: just replace each hex digit with its equivalent
4-bit binary sequence.
261.316 = 2 6 1 . 3
= 0010 0110 0001 . 0011
• To convert from binary to hex, make groups of 4 bits, starting from the binary point. Add 0s to
the ends of the number if needed. Then, just convert each bit group to its corresponding hex
digit.

10110100.00102 = 1011 0100 . 0010

= B 4 . 2

Hex Binary Hex Binary Hex Binary Hex Binary

0 0000 4 0100 8 1000 C 1100
1 0001 5 0101 9 1001 D 1101
2 0010 6 0110 A 1010 E 1110
3 0011 7 0111 B 1011 F 1111

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 Hex to Decimal

(87C9)16 = (???)10

x 83 x 72 x C x 90
16 16 161 16
32,768 + 1792 + 192 + 9

(87C9)16 = (34,761)10

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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Convert Decimal to Hex

Integer Part: Divide by the base,

keep track of the remainder, and read up.
16 34,761
16 2,172 rem 9
16 rem 12 = C Read up
13
5
16 rem 7
34,76110 = 87C916
8
0 rem 8
11

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Problems

100101012 = ? (decimal)

12
 Problems

85710 = ?16

13
 Problems

BED16 = ?2

14
 Addition

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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Binary Addition

• Binary addition is very simple.

• 0+1 = 1
• 1 + 1 = 0 (and carry 1)
• Watch for overflow!
• Example: 111101 + 10111
1 1 1 1 1 1 carries
1 1 1 1 0 1
+ 0 1 0 1 1 1
---------------------
1 0 1 0 1 0 0

Overflow

Mathematically, overflow is not a problem.

However, in a fixed-size storage, problems arise
 Subtraction

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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Two’s Complement
Two steps: •
1. Flip each bit (one’s complement)
2. Then add 1
Example: Find the 2’s complement of (0110 0101)2 and of its 2’s complement…

• N = 0110 0101
• Flipped = 1001 1010
+ 1
---------------
1001 1011 1001 1011
0110 0100
-N +1
---------------
0110 0101
N
 Subtraction example

Subtract 35 from 73 by adding

73 01001001
-35
1 10111 01 35 00100011
38
00100110 2’s comp 11011100 flip
+1
-----------

-35 11011101

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

Question: How many numbers can be represented
by n binary bits?

• Take n=2; • Take n=3

• 00 • 000
• 01 • 001
• 10 • 010
• 11 • 011
(4 numbers) • 100
• 101
• 110
• 111
(8 numbers)
Question: which of these numbers is positive, and
which is negative?
• Take n=2; • Take n=3
• 00 • 000
• 01 • 001
• 10 • 010
• 11 • 011
• (4 numbers) • 100
• 101
• 110
• 111 (8 numbers)
Answer: it depends on YOUR assumption
Unsigned numbers
• One can choose to consider all • Alternatively, one can choose to
numbers represented by n bits consider the n-bits as signed
to be unsigned (non-negative) numbers in two’s complement
• 00=0 form (MSB represents the sign)
• 01=1 • If MSB=1 ➔ negative
• 10=2 • 00=0
• 11=3 • 01=1
• 10=-2
• Range: 0 to 3 • 11=-1
• Range: -2 to +1
Conclusion (Very important!!)
1. still 4 = 22 = 2𝑛 numbers can be represented with 𝑛 bits
2. The range of unsigned numbers is 0 to 3 = 22 − 1 = 2𝑛 − 1
3. The range of signed –two’s complement – is:−2 to +1
−2𝑛−1 to +(2𝑛−1 − 1)
Verify how many numbers can be represented in each case

Unsigned Range: Signed Range:

0 to 2𝑛 − 1 −2𝑛−1 to +(2𝑛−1 − 1)
Verify how many numbers can be represented in each case

Unsigned Range:
0 to 2𝑛 − 1 Why?

2𝑛 − 1 − 0 + 1 = 2𝑛
Verify how many numbers can be represented in each case

Signed Range:
−2𝑛−1 to +(2𝑛−1 − 1)

+ 2𝑛−1 − 1 − −2𝑛−1 + 1 = 2𝑛−1 + 2𝑛−1 = 2 2𝑛−1 = 2𝑛

Why?
Try 𝑛 = 3
• Unsigned range: 0 to 7 = 23 − 1
✓000 001 010 011 100 101 110 111
✓0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

• Signed range:
➢000 001 010 011 100 101 110 111
➢0 1 2 3 ? ? ? ?
 Table 2.2
Positive and Negative Binary Numbers

Signed decimal Hex Binary Unsigned decimal

-128 80 10000000 128
-127 81 10000001 129
-126 82 10000010 130
… … … …
… … … …
… … … …
-3 FD 11111101 253
-2 FE 11111110 254
-1 FF 11111111 255
0 00 00000000 0
1 01 00000001 1
2 02 00000010 2
3 03 00000011 3
… … … …
… … …
… … …
125 7D 01111101 125
126 7E 01111110 126
127 7F 01111111 127

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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Signed Numbers

4-bit: 8H = -8 to 7H = +7
1000 to 0111

8-bit: 80H = -128 to 7FH +127

=
16-bit: 8000H = -32,768 to
7FFFH = +32,767

32-bit: 80000000H = -2,147,483,648 to

7FFFFFFFH = +2,147,483,647

24

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 Questions

What is the two’s complement of

00101100?

What hex number represents the

decimal number -40?

25

From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 General information

ASCII
Unicode
Utf-8, 16
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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 ASCII

• The most commonly used code for representing letters, numerals

and punctuation characters (alphanumeric data)
• Each character is represented with a 7-bit string; for example:
‘3’ = 00110011 (hex 33)
‘ ’ = 00100000 (hex 20)
• An 8-bit extension of ASCII has also been defined

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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

 ASCII Code
• American Standard Code for Information Interchange
• ASCII is a 7-bit code, frequently used with an 8th bit for error
detection (more about that in a bit).

Character ASCII (bin) ASCII (hex) Decimal

A 1000001 41 65
B 1000010 42 66
C 1000011 43 67
…
Z
a
…
1
‘

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From Digital Logic Design – M.Fakih

ASCII
Table
Extended
ASCII
How are other languages represented?
Arabic, Chinese, .. alphabets
• Answer: search for Unicode, utf-8, utf-16

• https://www.w3schools.com/charsets/ref_html_utf8.asp
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/643694/what-is-the-difference-
between-utf-8-and-unicode