DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRAM (SOURCE CODE) IN MICROELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
In microelectronic systems, hardware and software development must go hand-in-hand. Without
the software, the hardware is useless. The software alone cannot be used achieve any objective without
the hardware on which it will run. The process of program or software development starts with
identification and understanding the problem to be solved, the programmer must know how the problem
can be solved.
The process of solving the problem will be broken down into a number of logical and simple steps
that the computer system can handle. The next process is the development of the algorithm of the program,
i.e. each step of solving the problem is listed out in human language or shown pictorially using a flowchart.
Each step in the algorithm or flowchart will later be replaced with appropriate assembly language codes
or codes of high level programming language.
Translation or compilation process
The process of translating the program written in assembly language or high-level language to
machine language involves.
i. Typing the assembly-language program in an editor (a computer application) and saved with .ASM
extension.
ii. The ASM file will be fed into an assembler (by the computer); which converts the ASM file into
machine codes.
iii. The assembler also produces the OBJECT file and the LIST file with .OBJ and .LST extensions
respectively. The list file shows the address locations occupied by each instruction, the assembly code,
the opcode and the operand. It is useful for debugging the program. The object file contains the
machine code but it is not an executable file.
A linker program usually combines multiple object files and libraries into a single executable file in
the computer.
iv. The object file is fed to the linker program and the absolute object file with extension .ABS is
produced.
v. The ABS file is fed to Object-to-Hex (OH) converter which creates a file with .Hex extension. The
HEX file only contains the opcode and operands in hexadecimal codes.
vi. The hex file will be burnt into the ROM of the system using a programmer.
Debugging process
When the program fails to solve the problem accurately, or does not produce desired results, the
instructions will be checked line-by-line for any error by the programmer. This can be done in two ways:
By using the list file to find syntax error.
By using the trace table to follow or monitor the changes that occur in each register during the execution
of the program
INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT (IDE)
The integrated development environment is a software application that provides a comprehensive platform
for software development. It normally has the editor, compiler, debugger etc. in one package, programs in high
level languages are normally written using IDEs. Examples include Arduino IDE and MCU 8051 IDE for writing
source codes for Arduino-based and Intel 8051-based systems in C++ programming language.
