Introduction

Stepper motors can be used in various areas of your microcontroller projects such as making robots, robotic
arm, automatic door lock system etc. This tutorial will explain you construction of stepper motors (unipolar and
bipolar stepper motors ), basic pricipal, different controlling types (Half step and Full step), Interfacing
Techniques (using L293D or ULN2003) and programming your microcontroller in C and assembly to
control stepper motor.

►Unipolar stepper motor

The unipolar stepper motor has five or six wires and four coils (actually two coils divided by center connections
on each coil). The center connections of the coils are tied together and used as the power connection. They are
called unipolar steppers because power always comes in on this one pole.

►Bipolar stepper motor

The bipolar stepper motor usually has four wires coming out of it. Unlike unipolar steppers, bipolar steppers
have no common center connection. They have two independent sets of coils instead. You can distinguish them
from unipolar steppers by measuring the resistance between the wires. You should find two pairs of wires with
equal resistance. If you've got the leads of your meter connected to two wires that are not connected (i.e. not
attached to the same coil), you should see infinite resistance (or no continuity).
As already said, we will talk mostly on "Unipolar stepper motors" which is most common type of stepper
motor available inthe market.A simple example of 6 lead step motor is given below and in 5 lead step motor
wire 5 and 6 are joined together to make 1 wire as common.

►Working of Stepper Motor

Now lets discuss the operation pricipal of a stepper motor. When we energize a coil of stepper motor, The shaft
of stepper motor (which is actually a permanent magnet) align itself according to poles of energized coil. So
when motor coils are energized in a particular sequence, motor shaft tend to align itself according to pole of
coils and hence rotates. A small example of energizing operation is given below.
You can see in the example, when coil "A" is energized, A north-south polarity is generated at "A+A\" as shown
in the figure above and magnetic shaft automatically align itself according to the poles generated. When the next
coil is energized the shaft again align itself and take a step. Hence the working pricipal.

We have seen that to make the stepper motor work, we need to energize coil in a sqeuence.
Stepper motors can be driven in two different patterns or sequences namely,
• Full Step Sequence
• Half Step Sequence
we will go through these sequences one by one.

►Full Step Sequence

In the full step sequence, two coils are energized at the same time and motor shaft rotates. The order in which
coils has to be energized is given in the table below.

Full Mode Sequence

Step A B A\ B\
0 1 1 0 0
1 0 1 1 0
2 0 0 1 1
3 1 0 0 1

The working of the full mode sequence is given in the animated figure below.

►Half Step Sequence

In Half mode step sequence, motor step angle reduces to half the angle in full mode. So the angualar resolution
is also increased i.e. it becomes double the angular resolution in full mode. Also in half mode sequence
the number of steps gets doubled as that of full mode. Half mode is usually preffered over full mode. Table
below shows the pattern of energizing the coils.

Half Mode Sequence

Step A B A\ B\
0 1 1 0 0
1 0 1 0 0
2 0 1 1 0
3 0 0 1 0
4 0 0 1 1
5 0 0 0 1
6 1 0 0 1
7 1 0 0 0

The working of the half mode sequence is given in the animated figure below.

►Step Angle
Step angle of the stepper motor is defined as the angle traversed by the motor in one step. To calculate step
angle,simply divide 360 by number of steps a motor takes to complete one revolution. As we have seen that in
half mode, the number of steps taken by the motor to complete one revolution gets doubled, so step angle
reduces to half.

As in above examples, Stepper Motor rotating in full mode takes 4 steps to complete a revolution, So step angle
can be calculated as...

Step Angle ø = 360° / 4 = 90°

and in case of half mode step angle gets half so 45°.

So this way we can calculate step angle for any stepper motor. Usually step angle is given in the spec sheet
of thestepper motor you are using. Knowing stepper motor's step angle helps you calibrate the rotation of motor
also to helps you move the motor to correct angular position.

►Step Sequence for 2-wire control of Unipolar stepper motor

As seen in above explanation, In every step of the sequence, two wires are always set to opposite polarities.
Because of this, it's possible to control steppers with only two wires instead of four, with a slightly more
complex circuit. The stepping sequence is the same as it is for the two coils A and B, and the opposite polarity
value is given to A\ and B\. The sequence is given in the table below:

2-wire Mode Sequence

Step A B

0 0 1

1 1 1

2 1 0

3 0 0

►Step Sequence for Bipolar stepper motor

Bipolar motor has simpler construction. It has two windings with no center taps and a permanent magnet at the
center just like unipolar stepepr motors. Being simpler in contruction, the stepping sequence is a little complex,
as the power for both the coils has to be controlled in such a way that the polarity of the poles get reversed. This
polarity sequence is shown in the table below.

Polarity Sequence
Step A A\ B B\
0 +ve -ve -ve -ve
1 -ve -ve +ve -ve
2 -ve +ve -ve -ve
3 -ve -ve -ve +ve

The above polarity sequence can be interpreted in terms of logic levels for microcontroller by activating one coil
at a time as shown in the table below.

Step Sequence
Step A A\ B B\
0 1 0 0 0
1 0 0 1 0
2 0 1 0 0
3 0 0 0 1

We have now learnt most of the necessary things regarding a stepper motor.
There are actually many ways you can interface a stepper motor to your controller, out of them the most used
interfaces are:
1. Interface using L293D - H-Bridge Motor Driver
2. Interface using ULN2003/2004 - Darlington Arrays

We will dicuss both connection techniques one by one. The above mentioned methods need 4 controller pins for
interface.

►Connecting Unipolar stepper using L293D

As you see in the circuit above the four pins "Controller pin 1",2,3 and 4 will control the motion and direction of
thestepper motor according to the step sequece programmed in the controller.

Connecting Unipolar stepper using ULN2003/2004

As already discussed in case of L293D, Here in this circuit too the four pins "Controller pin 1",2,3 and 4 will
control the motion and direction of the stepper motor according to the step sequece sent by the controller.

►2-wire connection for Unipolar Stepper Motor

We have seen the generally used 4-wire connection method for interfacing unipolar stepper motor, but we can
simplify the design to make controller use less pins with the help of 2-wire connection method. The circuit for
2-wire connection is shown below.

Connecting Bipolar Stepper Motor

As we have studied that, Bi-polar stepper motors has 2 different coils. The step sequence for Bipolar stepper
motor is same as that of unipolar stepper motors. The driving circuit for this require an H-Bridge as it allows the
polarity of the power applied to be controlled independently. This can be done as shown in the figure below:
Programming Full step Sequence
I am assuming that stepper motor is connected at Port 1.0 to Port 1.3. Adjusting the delay
will increase or decrease the speed of the motor. Here just for demonstration i have taken some delay, you
can change it as you want.

org 0H

stepper equ P1

main:
mov stepper, #0CH
acall delay
mov stepper, #06H
acall delay
mov stepper, #03H
acall delay
mov stepper, #09H
acall delay
sjmp main

delay:
mov r7,#4
wait2:
mov r6,#0FFH
wait1:
mov r5,#0FFH
wait:
djnz r5,wait
djnz r6,wait1
djnz r7,wait2
ret
end
Programming Half step Sequence
main:
mov stepper, #08H
acall delay
mov stepper, #0CH
acall delay
mov stepper, #04H
acall delay
mov stepper, #06H
acall delay
mov stepper, #02H
acall delay
mov stepper, #03H
acall delay
mov stepper, #01H
acall delay
mov stepper, #09H
acall delay
sjmp main
Programming for 2-wire connection of
Unipolar Stepper Motor
main:
mov stepper, #03H
acall delay
mov stepper, #01H
acall delay
mov stepper, #00H
acall delay
mov stepper, #02H
acall delay
sjmp main
Programming for Bipolar Stepper Motor
main:
mov stepper, #08H
acall delay
mov stepper, #02H
acall delay
mov stepper, #04H
acall delay
mov stepper, #01H
acall delay
sjmp main
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)

Introduction
Pulse width Modulation or PWM is one of the powerful techniques used in control systems today. They
are not only employed in wide range of control application which includes: speed control, power control,
measurement and communication..

►Basic Principal of PWM

Pulse-width Modulation is achived with the help of a square wave whose duty cycle is changed to get a
varying voltage output as a result of average value of waveform. A mathematical explaination of this is
given below.

Consider a square wave shown in the figure above.

Ton is the time for which the output is high and Toff is time for which output is low. Let Ttotal be time
period of the wave such that,

Duty cycle of a square wave is defined as

The output voltage varies with duty cycle as...

So you can see from the final equation the output voltage can be directly varied by varying the Ton value.

If Ton is 0, Vout is also 0.

if Ton is Ttotal then Vout is Vin or say maximum.

This was all about theory behind PWM. Now lets take a look at the practical implementation of PWM
on microcontrollers.
Idea Behind Implementation
The basic idea behind PWM implementation on 8051 is using timers and switching port pin high/low at
defined intervals. As we have discussed in the introduction of PWM that by changing the Ton time, we can
vary the width of square wave keeping same time period of the square wave.

We will be using 8051 Timer0 in Mode 0. Values for high and low level will be loaded in such a way that
total delay remains same. If for high level we load a value X in TH0 then for low level TH0 will be loaded
with 255-X so that total remains as 255.

►Assembly Code Example

Timer setup for PWM

PWMPIN EQU P1.0 ; PWM output pin

PWM_SETUP:
MOV TMOD,#00H ; Timer0 in Mode 0
MOV R7, #160 ; Set pulse width control
; The value loaded in R7 is value X as
; discussed above.
SETB EA ; Enable Interrupts
SETB ET0 ; Enable Timer 0 Interrupt
SETB TR0 ; Start Timer
RET

Interrupt Service Routine

TIMER_0_INTERRUPT:
JB F0, HIGH_DONE ; If F0 flag is set then we just finished
; the high section of the
LOW_DONE: ; cycle so Jump to HIGH_DONE
SETB F0 ; Make F0=1 to indicate start of high
section
SETB PWMPIN ; Make PWM output pin High
MOV TH0, R7 ; Load high byte of timer with R7
; (pulse width control value)
CLR TF0 ; Clear the Timer 0 interrupt flag
RETI ; Return from Interrupt to where
; the program came from
HIGH_DONE:
CLR F0 ; Make F0=0 to indicate start of low
section
CLR PWMPIN ; Make PWM output pin low
MOV A, #0FFH ; Move FFH (255) to A
CLR C ; Clear C (the carry bit) so it does
; not affect the subtraction
SUBB A, R7 ; Subtract R7 from A. A = 255 - R7.
MOV TH0, A ; so the value loaded into TH0 + R7 = 255
CLR TF0 ; Clear the Timer 0 interrupt flag
RETI ; Return from Interrupt to where
; the program came from
In your main program you need to call this PWM_SETUP routine and your controller will have a PWM
output. Timer Interrupt service routine will take care of PWM in the background. The width of PWM can
be changed by changing the value of R7 register. In above example I am using 160, you can choose any
value from 0 to 255. R7 = 0 will give you o/p 0V approx and R7 = 255 will give you 5V approx

You can also make use of Timer1 if you want. And the output pin can be changed to whatever pin you
want.

LCD interfacing with Microcontrollers

Introduction
The most commonly used Character based LCDs are based on Hitachi's HD44780 controller or other which are compatible
with HD44580. In this tutorial, we will discuss about character based LCDs, their interfacing with various microcontrollers,
various interfaces (8-bit/4-bit), programming, special stuff and tricks you can do with these simple looking LCDs which can
give a new look to your application.

For Specs and technical information HD44780 controller Click Here

►Pin Description
The most commonly used LCDs found in the market today are 1 Line, 2 Line or 4 Line LCDs which have only
1 controllerand support at most of 80 charachers, whereas LCDs supporting more than 80 characters make use of 2
HD44780 controllers.

Most LCDs with 1 controller has 14 Pins and LCDs with 2 controller has 16 Pins (two pins are extra in both for back-light
LED connections). Pin description is shown in the table below.

Figure 1: Character LCD type HD44780 Pin diagram

Pin No. Name Description

Pin no. 1 VSS Power supply (GND)

Pin no. 2 VCC Power supply (+5V)
Pin no. 3 VEE Contrast adjust
0 = Instruction input
Pin no. 4 RS
1 = Data input
Pin no. 5 R/W 0 = Write to LCD
 module
1 = Read from LCD
module
Pin no. 6 EN Enable signal
Pin no. 7 D0 Data bus line 0 (LSB)
Pin no. 8 D1 Data bus line 1
Pin no. 9 D2 Data bus line 2
Pin no. 10 D3 Data bus line 3
Pin no. 11 D4 Data bus line 4
Pin no. 12 D5 Data bus line 5
Pin no. 13 D6 Data bus line 6
Pin no. 14 D7 Data bus line 7 (MSB)
Table 1: Character LCD pins with 1 Controller

Pin No. Name Description

Pin no. 1 D7
Data bus line 7 (MSB)
Pin no. 2 D6
Data bus line 6
Pin no. 3 D5
Data bus line 5
Pin no. 4 D4
Data bus line 4
Pin no. 5 D3
Data bus line 3
Pin no. 6 D2
Data bus line 2
Pin no. 7 D1
Data bus line 1
Pin no. 8 D0
Data bus line 0 (LSB)
Enable signal for row 0 and 1
Pin no. 9 EN1 st
(1 controller)
0 = Write to LCD module
Pin no. 10 R/W
1 = Read from LCD module
0 = Instruction input
Pin no. 11 RS
1 = Data input
Pin no. 12 VEE Contrast adjust
Pin no. 13 VSS Power supply (GND)
Pin no. 14 VCC Power supply (+5V)
Enable signal for row 2 and 3
Pin no. 15 EN2 nd
(2 controller)
Pin no. 16 NC Not Connected
Table 2: Character LCD pins with 2 Controller

Usually these days you will find single controller LCD modules are used more in the market. So in the tutorial we will
discuss more about the single controller LCD, the operation and everything else is same for the double controller too. Lets
take a look at the basic information which is there in every LCD.

DDRAM - Display Data RAM

Display data RAM (DDRAM) stores display data represented in 8-bit character codes. Its extended capacity is 80 X 8 bits,
or 80 characters. The area in display data RAM (DDRAM) that is not used for display can be used as general data RAM. So
whatever you send on the DDRAM is actually displayed on the LCD. For LCDs like 1x16, only 16 characters are visible, so
whatever you write after 16 chars is written in DDRAM but is not visible to the user.

Figures below will show you the DDRAM addresses of 1 Line, 2 Line and 4 Line LCDs.

Figure 2: DDRAM Address for 1 Line LCD

Figure 3: DDRAM Address for 2 Line LCD

Figure 4: DDRAM Address for 4 Line LCD

►CGROM - Character Generator ROM

Now you might be thinking that when you send an ascii value to DDRAM, how the character is displayed on LCD? so the
answer is CGROM. The character generator ROM generates 5 x 8 dot or 5 x 10 dot character patterns from 8-bit
character codes (see Figure 5 and Figure 6 for more details). It can generate 208 5 x 8 dot character patterns and 32 5 x 10
dot character patterns. Userdefined character patterns are also available by mask-programmed ROM.
Figure 5: LCD characters code map for 5x8 dots
 Figure 6: LCD characters code map for 5x10 dots

As you can see in both the code maps, the character code from 0x00 to 0x07 is occupied by the CGRAM characters or the
user defined characters. If user want to display the fourth custom character then the code to display it is 0x03 i.e. when user
send 0x03 code to the LCD DDRAM then the fourth user created charater or patteren will be displayed on the LCD.

►CGRAM - Character Generator RAM

As clear from the name, CGRAM area is used to create custom characters in LCD. In the character generator RAM, the user
can rewrite character patterns by program. For 5 x 8 dots, eight character patterns can be written, and for 5 x 10 dots, four
character patterns can be written. Later in this tutorial i will explain how to use CGRAM area to make custom character and
also making animations to give nice effects to your application.

►BF - Busy Flag

Busy Flag is an status indicator flag for LCD. When we send a command or data to the LCD for processing, this flag is set
(i.e BF =1) and as soon as the instruction is executed successfully this flag is cleared (BF = 0). This is helpful in producing
and exact ammount of delay. for the LCD processing.
To read Busy Flag, the condition RS = 0 and R/W = 1 must be met and The MSB of the LCD data bus (D7) act as busy flag.
When BF = 1 means LCD is busy and will not accept next command or data and BF = 0 means LCD is ready for the next
command or data to process.

►Instruction Register (IR) and Data Register (DR)

There are two 8-bit registers in HD44780 controller Instruction and Data register. Instruction register corresponds to
theregister where you send commands to LCD e.g LCD shift command, LCD clear, LCD address etc. and
Data register is used for storing data which is to be displayed on LCD. when send the enable signal of the LCD is asserted,
the data on the pins is latched in to the data register and data is then moved automatically to the DDRAM and hence is
displayed on the LCD.
Data Register is not only used for sending data to DDRAM but also for CGRAM, the address where you want to send the
data, is decided by the instruction you send to LCD.

Commands and Instruction set

Only the instruction register (IR) and the data register (DR) of the LCD can be controlled by the MCU. Before starting
theinternal operation of the LCD, control information is temporarily stored into these registers to allow interfacing with
various MCUs, which operate at different speeds, or various peripheral control devices. The internal operation of the LCD is
determined by signals sent from the MCU. These signals, which include register selection signal (RS), read/write signal
(R/W), and the data bus (DB0 to DB7), make up the LCD instructions (Table 3). There are four categories
of instructionsthat:

• Designate LCD functions, such as display format, data length, etc.

• Set internal RAM addresses
• Perform data transfer with internal RAM
• Perform miscellaneous functions
 Table 3: Command and Instruction set for LCD type HD44780

Although looking at the table you can make your own commands and test them. Below is a breif list of useful commands
which are used frequently while working on the LCD.

No. Instruction Hex Decimal

1 Function Set: 8-bit, 1 Line, 5x7 Dots 0x30 48

2 Function Set: 8-bit, 2 Line, 5x7 Dots 0x38 56
3 Function Set: 4-bit, 1 Line, 5x7 Dots 0x20 32
4 Function Set: 4-bit, 2 Line, 5x7 Dots 0x28 40
5 Entry Mode 0x06 6
6 Display off Cursor off 0x08 8
 (clearing display without clearing
DDRAM content)
7 Display on Cursor on 0x0E 14
8 Display on Cursor off 0x0C 12
9 Display on Cursor blinking 0x0F 15
10 Shift entire display left 0x18 24
12 Shift entire display right 0x1C 30
13 Move cursor left by one character 0x10 16
14 Move cursor right by one character 0x14 20
Clear Display (also clear DDRAM
15 0x01 1
content)
Set DDRAM address or coursor
16 0x80+add* 128+add*
position on display
Set CGRAM address or set pointer
17 0x40+add** 64+add**
to CGRAM location
Table 4: Frequently used commands and instructions for LCD

* DDRAM address given in LCD basics section see Figure 2,3,4

** CGRAM address from 0x00 to 0x3F, 0x00 to 0x07 for char1 and so on..

The table above will help you while writing programs for LCD. But after you are done testing with the table 4, i recommend
you to use table 3 to get more grip on working with LCD and trying your own commands. In the next section of
the tutorial we will see the initialization with some of the coding examples in C as well as assembly.

LCD Initialization
Before using the LCD for display purpose, LCD has to be initialized either by the internal reset circuit or sending set of
commands to initialize the LCD. It is the user who has to decide whether an LCD has to be initialized by instructions or
byinternal reset circuit. we will dicuss both ways of initialization one by one.

Initialization by internal Reset Circuit

An internal reset circuit automatically initializes the HD44780U when the power is turned on. The following instructions are
executed during the initialization. The busy flag (BF) is kept in the busy state until the initialization ends (BF = 1). The busy
state lasts for 10 ms after VCC rises to 4.5 V.

• Display clear
• Function set:
DL = 1; 8-bit interface data
N = 0; 1-line display
F = 0; 5 x 8 dot character font
• Display on/off control:
D = 0; Display off
C = 0; Cursor off
B = 0; Blinking off
• Entry mode set:
I/D = 1; Increment by 1
S = 0; No shift

Note: If the electrical characteristics conditions listed under the table Power Supply Conditions Using Internal Reset Circuit
are not met, the internal reset circuit will not operate normally and will fail to initialize the HD44780U. For such a case,
initial-ization must be performed by the MCU as explained in the section, Initializing by Instruction.
As mentioned in the Note, there are certain condtions that has to be met, if user want to use initialization by internal reset
circuit. These conditions are shown in the Table 5 below.

Table 5: Power Supply condition for Internal Reset circuit

Figure 7 shows the test condition which are to be met for internal reset circuit to be active.

Figure 7: Internal Power Supply reset

Now the problem with the internal reset circuit is, it is highly dependent on power supply, to meet this critical power supply
conditions is not hard but are difficult to achive when you are making a simple application. So usually the second menthod
i.e. Initialization by instruction is used and is recommended most of the time.

Initialization by instructions

Initializing LCD with instructions is really simple. Given below is a flowchart that describles the step to follow, to initialize
the LCD.
 Figure 8: Flow chart for LCD initialization

As you can see from the flow chart, the LCD is initialized in the following sequence...
1) Send command 0x30 - Using 8-bit interface
2) Delay 20ms
3) Send command 0x30 - 8-bit interface
4) Delay 20ms
5) Send command 0x30 - 8-bit interface
6) Delay 20ms
7) Send Function set - see Table 4 for more information
8) Display Clear command
9) Set entry mode command - explained below

The first 3 commands are usually not required but are recomended when you are using 4-bit interface. So you can program
the LCD starting from step 7 when working with 8-bit interface. Function set command depends on what kind of LCD you
are using and what kind of interface you are using (see Table 4 in LCD Command section).

LCD Entry mode

From Table 3 in command section, you can see that the two bits decide the entry mode for LCD, these bits are:
a) I/D - Increment/Decrement bit
b) S - Display shift.
With these two bits we get four combinations of entry mode which are 0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07 (see table 3 in LCD
Commandsection). So we get different results with these different entry modes. Normally entry mode 0x06 is used which is
No shift and auto incremement. I recommend you to try all the possible entry modes and see the results, I am sure you will
be surprised.

Programming example for LCD Initialization

CODE:
LCD_data equ P2 ;LCD Data port
LCD_D7 equ P2.7 ;LCD D7/Busy Flag
LCD_rs equ P1.0 ;LCD Register Select
LCD_rw equ P1.1 ;LCD Read/Write
LCD_en equ P1.2 ;LCD Enable

LCD_init:
mov LCD_data,#38H ;Function set: 2 Line, 8-bit, 5x7 dots
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
mov LCD_data,#0FH ;Display on, Curson blinking command
clr LCD_rs ;Selected instruction register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
mov LCD_data,#01H ;Clear LCD
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
mov LCD_data,#06H ;Entry mode, auto increment with no shift
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
ret ;Return from routine

LCD Initialization
Before using the LCD for display purpose, LCD has to be initialized either by the internal reset circuit or sending set of
commands to initialize the LCD. It is the user who has to decide whether an LCD has to be initialized by instructions or
byinternal reset circuit. we will dicuss both ways of initialization one by one.

Initialization by internal Reset Circuit

An internal reset circuit automatically initializes the HD44780U when the power is turned on. The following instructions are
executed during the initialization. The busy flag (BF) is kept in the busy state until the initialization ends (BF = 1). The busy
state lasts for 10 ms after VCC rises to 4.5 V.

• Display clear
• Function set:
DL = 1; 8-bit interface data
N = 0; 1-line display
F = 0; 5 x 8 dot character font
• Display on/off control:
D = 0; Display off
C = 0; Cursor off
B = 0; Blinking off
• Entry mode set:
I/D = 1; Increment by 1
S = 0; No shift

Note: If the electrical characteristics conditions listed under the table Power Supply Conditions Using Internal Reset Circuit
are not met, the internal reset circuit will not operate normally and will fail to initialize the HD44780U. For such a case,
initial-ization must be performed by the MCU as explained in the section, Initializing by Instruction.

As mentioned in the Note, there are certain condtions that has to be met, if user want to use initialization by internal reset
circuit. These conditions are shown in the Table 5 below.

Table 5: Power Supply condition for Internal Reset circuit

Figure 7 shows the test condition which are to be met for internal reset circuit to be active.
 Figure 7: Internal Power Supply reset

Now the problem with the internal reset circuit is, it is highly dependent on power supply, to meet this critical power supply
conditions is not hard but are difficult to achive when you are making a simple application. So usually the second menthod
i.e. Initialization by instruction is used and is recommended most of the time.

Initialization by instructions

Initializing LCD with instructions is really simple. Given below is a flowchart that describles the step to follow, to initialize
the LCD.
 Figure 8: Flow chart for LCD initialization

As you can see from the flow chart, the LCD is initialized in the following sequence...
1) Send command 0x30 - Using 8-bit interface
2) Delay 20ms
3) Send command 0x30 - 8-bit interface
4) Delay 20ms
5) Send command 0x30 - 8-bit interface
6) Delay 20ms
7) Send Function set - see Table 4 for more information
8) Display Clear command
9) Set entry mode command - explained below

The first 3 commands are usually not required but are recomended when you are using 4-bit interface. So you can program
the LCD starting from step 7 when working with 8-bit interface. Function set command depends on what kind of LCD you
are using and what kind of interface you are using (see Table 4 in LCD Command section).

LCD Entry mode

From Table 3 in command section, you can see that the two bits decide the entry mode for LCD, these bits are:
a) I/D - Increment/Decrement bit
b) S - Display shift.
With these two bits we get four combinations of entry mode which are 0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07 (see table 3 in LCD
Commandsection). So we get different results with these different entry modes. Normally entry mode 0x06 is used which is
No shift and auto incremement. I recommend you to try all the possible entry modes and see the results, I am sure you will
be surprised.

Programming example for LCD Initialization

CODE:
LCD_data equ P2 ;LCD Data port
LCD_D7 equ P2.7 ;LCD D7/Busy Flag
LCD_rs equ P1.0 ;LCD Register Select
LCD_rw equ P1.1 ;LCD Read/Write
LCD_en equ P1.2 ;LCD Enable

LCD_init:
mov LCD_data,#38H ;Function set: 2 Line, 8-bit, 5x7 dots
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
mov LCD_data,#0FH ;Display on, Curson blinking command
clr LCD_rs ;Selected instruction register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
mov LCD_data,#01H ;Clear LCD
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
mov LCD_data,#06H ;Entry mode, auto increment with no shift
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
ret ;Return from routine

Reading the busy Flag

As discussed in the previous section, there must be some delay which is needed to be there for LCD to successfullyprocess
the command or data. So this delay can be made either with a delay loop of specified time more than that of LCD process
time or we can read the busy flag, which is recomended. The reason to use busy flag is that delay produced is almost for the
exact amount of time for which LCD need to process the time. So is best suited for every application.

Steps to read busy flag

when we send the command, the BF or D7th bit of the LCD becomes 1 and as soon as the command is processed the BF = 0.
Following are the steps to be kept in mind while reading the Busy flag.
 • Select command register
• Select read operation
• Send enable signal
• Read the flag

So following the above steps we can write the code in assembly as below..

Ports used are same as the previous example

LCD_busy:
setb LCD_D7 ;Make D7th bit of LCD data port as i/p
setb LCD_en ;Make port pin as o/p
clr LCD_rs ;Select command register
setb LCD_rw ;we are reading
check:
clr LCD_en ;Enable H->L
setb LCD_en
jb LCD_D7,check ;read busy flag again and again till it becomes 0
ret ;Return from busy routine

The above routine will provide the necessary delay for the instructions to complete. If you dont want to read the busy flag
you can simply use a delay routine to provide the a specific ammount of delay. A simple delay routine for the LCD is given
below.

CODE:
LCD_busy:
mov r7,#50H
back:
mov r6,#FFH
djnz r6,$
djnz r7,back
ret ;Return from busy routine
Sending Commands to LCD
To send commands we simply need to select the command register. Everything is same as we have done in the initialization
routine. But we will summarize the common steps and put them in a single subroutine. Following are the steps:
• Move data to LCD port
• select command register
• select write operation
• send enable signal
• wait for LCD to process the command

Keeping these steps in mind we can write LCD command routine as.

CODE:
;Ports used are same as the previous example
;Routine to send command to LCD

LCD_command:
mov LCD_data,A ;Move the command to LCD port
clr LCD_rs ;Selected command register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing in instruction register
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
 clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the command
ret ;Return from busy routine

; Usage of the above routine

; A will carry the command for LCD
; e.g. we want to send clear LCD command
;
; mov a,#01H ;01H is command for clearing LCD
; acall LCD_command ;Send the command
Setting cursor position on LCD
To set the cursor position on LCD, we need to send the DDRAM address...
CODE:
Bit7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
1 AD6 AD5 AD4 AD3 AD2 AD1 AD0

The seventh bit is always 1, and bit 0 to 7 are DDRAM address (See
the introduction section of LCD). so if you want to put the cursor on first
position the address will be '0000000B' in binary and 7th bit is 1. so address will
be 0x80, so for DDRAM all address starts from 0x80.

For 2 line and 16 character LCD. The adress from 0x80 to 0x8F are visible on
first line and 0xC0 to 0xCF is visible on second line, rest of the DDRAM area is
still available but is not visible on the LCD, if you want to check this thing, then
simply put a long sting greater than 16 character and shift the entire display, you
will see all the missing character coming from the back.. this way you can make
scrolling line on LCD (see more on shifting display in commands section).

Below is an example for setting cursor position on LCD.

CODE:
;We are placing the cursor on the 4th position
;so the DDRAM address will be 0x03
;and the command will be 0x80+0x03 = 0x83
mov a,#83H ;load the command
acall LCD_command ;send command to LCD

Sending Data to LCD

To send data we simply need to select the data register. Everything is same as
the command routine. Following are the steps:
• Move data to LCD port
 • select data register
• select write operation
• send enable signal
• wait for LCD to process the data

Keeping these steps in mind we can write LCD command routine as.

CODE:
;Ports used are same as the previous example
;Routine to send data (single character) to LCD

LCD_senddata:
mov LCD_data,A ;Move the command to LCD port
setb LCD_rs ;Selected data register
clr LCD_rw ;We are writing
setb LCD_en ;Enable H->L
clr LCD_en
acall LCD_busy ;Wait for LCD to process the data
ret ;Return from busy routine

; Usage of the above routine

; A will carry the character to display on LCD
; e.g. we want to print A on LCD
;
; mov a,#'A' ;Ascii value of 'A' will be loaded inaccumulator
; acall LCD_senddata ;Send data
Now you have seen that its really easy to send command and data to LCD. Now
what if we have a string to send to LCD? how we are going to do that?

Is simple, we will store the LCD string in the ROM of controller and call the
string character by character. A simple exmple is shown below.

CODE:
;Sending string to LCD Example

LCD_sendstring:
clr a ;clear Accumulator for any previous data
movc a,@a+dptr ;load the first character inaccumulator
jz exit ;go to exit if zero
acall lcd_senddata ;send first char
inc dptr ;increment data pointer
sjmp LCD_sendstring ;jump back to send the next character
exit:
ret ;End of routine

; Usage of the above routine

; DPTR(data pointer) will carry the address
; of string to send to LCD.
; e.g. we want to print "LCD Tutorial" on LCD then
;
; mov dptr,#my_string ;my_string is the label where the string is stored
; acall LCD_sendstring ;Send string
;
; To store a string..
; my_string:
; DB "LCD Tutorial", 00H
; 00H indicate that string is finished.
CGRAM and Character Building
As already explained, all character based LCD of type HD44780 has CGRAM area to create user defined patterns. For
making custom patterns we need to write values to the CGRAM area defining which pixel to glow. These values are to be
written in the CGRAM adress starting from 0x40. If you are wondering why it starts from 0x40? Then the answer is given
below.

Bit 7 is 0 and Bit 6 is 1, due to which the CGRAM adress command starts from 0x40, where the address of CGRAM (Acg)
starts from 0x00. CGRAM has a total of 64 Bytes. When you are using LCD as 5x8 dots in function set then you can define
a total of 8 user defined patterns (1 Byte for each row and 8 rows for each pattern), where as when LCD is working in 5x10
dots, you can define 4 user defined patterns.

Lets take an of bulding a custom pattern. All we have to do is make a pixel-map of 7x5 and get the hex or decimal value or
hex value for each row, bit value is 1 if pixel is glowing and bit value is 0 if pixel is off. The final 7 values are loaded to the
CGRAM one by one. As i said there are 8 rows for each pattern, so last row is usually left blank (0x00) for the cursor. If you
are not using cursor then you can make use of that 8th row also. so you get a bigger pattern.

To explain the above explaination in a better way. I am going to take an example. Lets make a "Bell" pattern as shown
below.

Now we get the values for each row as shown.

Bit: 4 3 2 1 0 - Hex
Row1: 0 0 1 0 0 - 0x04
Row2: 0 1 1 1 0 - 0x0E
Row3: 0 1 1 1 0 - 0x0E
Row4: 0 1 1 1 0 - 0x0E
Row5: 1 1 1 1 1 - 0x1F
Row6: 0 0 0 0 0 - 0x00
Row7: 0 0 1 0 0 - 0x04
Row8: 0 0 0 0 0 - 0x00

We are not using row 8 as in our pattern it is not required. if you are using cursor then it is recommended not to use the 8th
row. Now as we have got the values. We just need to put these values in the CGRAM. You can decided which place you
want to store in. Following is the memory map for custom patterns in CGRAM.
 Memory Map

Pattern No. CGRAM Address (Acg)

1 0x00 - 0x07
2 0x08 - 0x0F
3 0x10 - 0x17
4 0x18 - 0x1F
5 0x20 - 0x27
6 0x28 - 0x2F
7 0x30 - 0x37
8 0x38 - 0x3F
We can point the cursor to CGRAM address by sending command, which is 0x40 + CGRAM address (For more
informationplease see Table 4 in commands section). Lets say we want to write the Bell pattern at second pattern location.
So we send the command as 0x48 (0x40 + 0x08), and then we send the pattern data. Below is a small programming example
to do this.

CODE:
;LCD Ports are same as discussed in previous sections

LCD_build:
mov A,#48H ;Load the location where we want to store
acall LCD_command ;Send the command
mov A,#04H ;Load row 1 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#0EH ;Load row 2 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#0EH ;Load row 3 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#0EH ;Load row 4 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#1FH ;Load row 5 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#00H ;Load row 6 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#04H ;Load row 7 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
mov A,#00H ;Load row 8 data
acall LCD_senddata ;Send the data
ret ;Return from routine

The above routine will create bell character at pattern location 2. To display the above generated pattern on LCD, simply
load the pattern location (0,1,2,...7) and call the LCD_senddata subroutine. Now we can also write the above routine in C
as...

CODE:
//LCD Ports are same as discussed in previous sections
void LCD_build(){
 LCD_command(0x48); //Load the location where we want to store
LCD_senddata(0x04); //Load row 1 data
LCD_senddata(0x0E); //Load row 2 data
LCD_senddata(0x0E); //Load row 3 data
LCD_senddata(0x0E); //Load row 4 data
LCD_senddata(0x1F); //Load row 5 data
LCD_senddata(0x00); //Load row 6 data
LCD_senddata(0x04); //Load row 7 data
LCD_senddata(0x00); //Load row 8 data
}

LCD interfacing with Microcontrollers tutorial - 4-bit Mode

►Introduction
Till now whatever we discussed in the previous part of ths LCD tutorial, we were dealing with 8-bit mode. Now we are
going to learn how to use LCD in 4-bit mode. There are many reasons why sometime we prefer to use LCD in 4-bit mode
instead of 8-bit. One basic reason is lesser number of pins are needed to interface LCD.

In 4-bit mode the data is sent in nibbles, first we send the higher nibble and then the lower nibble. To enable the 4-bit mode
of LCD, we need to follow special sequence of initialization that tells the LCD controller that user has selected 4-bit mode of
operation. We call this special sequence as resetting the LCD. Following is the reset sequence of LCD.
 Wait for abour 20mS
 Send the first init value (0x30)
 Wait for about 10mS
 Send second init value (0x30)
 Wait for about 1mS
 Send third init value (0x30)
 Wait for 1mS
 Select bus width (0x30 - for 8-bit and 0x20 for 4-bit)
 Wait for 1mS

The busy flag will only be valid after the above reset sequence. Usually we do not use busy flag in 4-bit mode as we have to
write code for reading two nibbles from the LCD. Instead we simply put a certain ammount of delay usually 300 to 600uS.
This delay might vary depending on the LCD you are using, as you might have a different crystal frequency on which LCD
controller is running. So it actually depends on the LCD module you are using. So if you feel any problem running the LCD,
simply try to increase the delay. This usually works. For me about 400uS works perfect.

►LCD connections in 4-bit Mode

Above is the connection diagram of LCD in 4-bit mode, where we only need 6 pins to interface an LCD. D4-D7 are the data
pins connection and Enable and Register select are for LCD control pins. We are not using Read/Write (RW) Pin of the
LCD, as we are only writing on the LCD so we have made it grounded permanently. If you want to use it.. then you
may connect it on your controller but that will only increase another pin and does not make any big difference. Potentiometer
RV1 is used to control the LCD contrast. The unwanted data pins of LCD i.e. D0-D3 are connected to ground.

►Sending data/command in 4-bit Mode

We will now look into the common steps to send data/command to LCD when working in 4-bit mode. As i already explained
in 4-bit mode data is sent nibble by nibble, first we send higher nibble and then lower nibble. This means in both command
and data sending function we need to saperate the higher 4-bits and lower 4-bits.

The common steps are:

 Mask lower 4-bits
 Send to the LCD port
 Send enable signal
 Mask higher 4-bits
 Send to LCD port
 Send enable signal

We are done with the theory part now, In the next section we will take a look at the programming microcontroller to control
LCD in 4-bit mode.

4-bit Initialization
Initialization of LCD is completed only after the reset sequence and basic initialization commands. We
have alreadydiscussed about the reset sequence of the lcd in the previous section. So lets look at the programming now...

►Assembly Program

CODE:
;In this whole 4-bit tutorial LCD is connected to
;my controller in following way...
;D4 - P3.0
;D5 - P3.1
;D6 - P3.2
;D7 - P3.3
;EN - P3.7
;RS - P3.5

lcd_port equ P3 ;LCD connected to Port3

en equ P3.7 ;Enable connected to P3.7
rs equ P3.5 ;Register select to P3.5

lcd_reset: ;LCD reset sequence

mov lcd_port, #0FFH
mov delay,#20 ;20mS delay
acall delayms
mov lcd_port, #83H ;Data = 30H, EN = 1, First Init
mov lcd_port, #03H ;Data = 30H, EN = 0
mov delay,#15 ;Delay 15mS
acall delayms
mov lcd_port, #83H ;Second Init, Data = 30H, EN = 1
mov lcd_port, #03H ;Data = 30H, EN = 0
mov delay,#5 ;Delay 5mS
acall delayms
mov lcd_port, #83H ;Third Init
mov lcd_port, #03H
mov delay,#5 ;Delay 5mS
acall delayms
mov lcd_port, #82H ;Select Data width (20H for 4bit)
mov lcd_port, #02H ;Data = 20H, EN = 0
mov delay,#5 ;Delay 5mS
acall delayms
ret

lcd_init:
acall lcd_reset ;Call LCD Reset sequence
mov a,#28H ;4-bit, 2 line, 5x7 dots
acall lcd_cmd ;Call LCD command
mov a,#0CH ;Display ON cursor OFF
acall lcd_cmd ;Call LCD command
mov a,#06H ;Set entry mode (Auto increment)
acall lcd_cmd ;Call LCD command
mov a,#80H ;Bring cursor to line 1
acall lcd_cmd ;Call LCD command
ret

Sending command/Data to LCD in 4-bit mode

►Assembly Program

CODE:
lcd_cmd: ;LCD command Routine
mov temp,a ;Save a copy of command to temp
swap a ;Swap to use higher nibble
anl a,#0FH ;Mask the first four bits
add a,#80H ;Enable = 1, RS = 0
mov lcd_port,a ;Move it to lcd port
anl a,#0FH ;Enable = 0, RS = 0
mov lcd_port,a ;Move to lcd port
 mov a,temp ;Reload the command from temp
anl a,#0FH ;Mask first four bits
add a,#80H ;Enable = 1
mov lcd_port,a ;Move to port
anl a,#0FH ;Enable = 0
mov lcd_port,a ;Move to lcd port

mov delay,#1 ;delay 1 ms

acall delayms
ret

lcd_dat: ;LCD data Routine

mov temp,a ;Keep copy of data in temp
swap a ;We need higher nibble
anl a,#0FH ;Mask first four bits
add a,#0A0H ;Enable = 1, RS = 1
mov lcd_port,a ;Move to lcd port
nop
clr en ;Enable = 0

mov a,temp ;Reload the data from temp

anl a,#0FH ;we need lower nibble now
add a,#0A0H ;Enable = 1, RS = 1
mov lcd_port,a ;Move to lcd port
nop
clr en ;Enable = 0

mov delay,#1 ;Delay 1mS

acall delayms
ret