Best Controller career-wise

Hey guys,

knowledge of which controller is very helpful in embedded industry. I know 8051 & bit of ARM. Between ARM,PIC & AVR which controller has most demand in the current job senario?

Thanx

It’s best to learn to use several. PIC is the 8-bit market leader, AVR is fifth.

Yes, as Leon said learn several and then learning any addition new ones is easy.

Embedded_guy:
Hey guys,

knowledge of which controller is very helpful in embedded industry. I know 8051 & bit of ARM. Between ARM,PIC & AVR which controller has most demand in the current job senario?

Thanx

Forget learning a specific microcontroller, learn how to solve problems with a microcontroller. Employers pay for results, not knowledge. So, you need to learn how to become a quick study on using whatever microcontroller has been selected (usually for cost reasons) to get those results. Specific skills that I think are useful are:

  1. Learn how to talk to external I/O chips using I2C, or SPI interfaces (tools like the Bus Pirate can help here)

  2. Learn C and spend some time learning how C gets translated into machine (asm) code so you’ll have an idea how efficiently different C constructs run on different microcontroller architectures (Harvard, etc.)

  3. Learn how interrupts work (and how they can be a nightmare to debug if you haven’t covered all the details.)

  4. Start building a library of portable code you can put to use quickly to solve common problems (timing generation, A/D and D/A conversion, PWM, etc.)

  5. Get familiar with what a logic analyzer is and how to use one to solve common problems with embedded systems.

And, most important, reach out and start building a network of contacts you can tap for help in situations in which you’re over your head (it will happen sooner than you think.) Help others as a way to build good will so these people will be eager to help you when you need it most.

Wayne