Component - An Embedded Component is a component that can be used in Processor Expert. Embedded Components encapsulate the functionality of basic elements of embedded systems like processor core, processor on-chip peripherals, standalone peripherals, virtual devices and pure software algorithms and wrap these facilities to properties, methods, and events (like objects in OOP). Components can support several languages (ANSI C, Assembly language or other) and the code is generated for the selected language.
Component Inspector - Window with all parameters of a selected component: properties, methods, events.
Bus clock - A main internal clock of the processor. Most of the processor timing is derived from this value.
Processor Component - Component that encapsulates the processor core initialization and control. This component also holds a group of settings related to the compilation and linking, such as Stack size, Memory mapping, linker settings. Only one processor component can be set active as the target processor. For details, see Processor Components topic.
Component Driver - Component drivers are the core of Processor Expert code generation process. Processor Expert uses drivers to generate the source code modules for driving an internal or external peripheral according to the component settings. A Component can use one or more drivers.
Counter - Represents the whole timer with its internal counter.
Events - Used for processing events related to the component's function (errors, interrupts, buffer overflow etc.) by user-written code. For details, see Embedded Components topic.
External user module - External source code attached to the PE project. The external user module may consist of two files: implementation and interface (*.C and *.H).
Free running device - Virtual device that represents a source of the overflow interrupt of the timer in the free running mode.
High level component - Component with the highest level of abstraction and usage comfort. An application built from these components can be easily ported to another microcontroller supported by the Processor Expert. They provide methods and events for runtime control. For details, see Component Categories topic.
Internal peripherals - Internal devices of the microcontroller such as ports, timers, A/D converters, etc. usually controlled by the processor core using special registers.
ISR - Interrupt Service Routine - Code which is called when an interrupt occurs.
LDD components - Logical Device Driver components. The LDD components are efficient set of components that are ready to be used together with RTOS. They provide a unified hardware access across microcontrollers allowing to develop simpler and more portable RTOS drivers. For details, see Component Categories topic.
Low level component - a component dependent on the peripheral structure to allow the user to benefit from the non-standard features of a peripheral. The level of portability is decreased because of this peripheral dependency. For details, see Component Categories topic.
Microcontroller - Microcontroller Unit - microcontroller used in our application.
Methods - user callable functions or sub-routines. The user can select which of them will be generated and which not. Selected methods will be generated during the code generation process into the component modules.
Module - Source code module - could be generated by Processor Expert (Component modules, processor Module, events.c) or created by the user and included in the project (user module).
OOP - Object-oriented programming (OOP) was invented to solve certain problems of modularity and reusability that occur when traditional programming languages such as C are used to write applications.
PE - Abbreviation of Processor Expert that is often used within this documentation.
PESL - Processor Expert System Library (PESL) is dedicated to power programmers, who are familiar with microcontroller architecture - each bit and each register. PESL provides the macros to access the peripherals directly, so PESL should be used only in some special cases. For details, see Processor Expert System Library topic.
Peripheral Initialization component - encapsulates the whole initialization of the appropriate peripheral. Components that have the lowest levels of abstraction and usage comfort. For details, see Component Categories topic. They usually do not support any methods or events except the initialization method. The rest of the device driver code needs to be written by hand using either PESL or direct control of the peripheral registers. For details, see Low-level Access to Peripherals topic.
Popup menu - this menu is displayed when the right mouse button is pressed on some graphical object.
PLL - Phase Locked Loop. This circuit is often built-in inside the processor and can be used a main source of the clock within the processor.
Prescaler - A fixed or configurable device that allows to divide or multiply a clock signal for a peripheral processor peripheral or its part.
Properties - Parameters of the component. Property settings define which internal peripherals will be used by the component and also initialization and behavior of the component at runtime.
RTOS - Real Time Operating System is an operating system (OS) intended for real-time applications.
Processor - The processor derivative used in a given project.
Template - It is a component template with preset parameters.
User-defined Component Template - User-defined component template is a component with preset parameters saved under a selected name. Also the name of the author and short description can be added to the template.
User module - Source code module created or modified by the user. (Main module, event module or external user module).
Xtal - A crystal - a passive component used as a part of an oscillator circuit.