Note that the Arduino MICRO has the micro USB port on it which means that USB cable used for programming the Arduino MICRO is different from that of the Arduino UNO and Arduino MEGA.
I will go through in detail about how to write a code and upload it in Arduino MICRO later in the post.
In short Arduino MICRO is quite easy to program it is just a matter of few clicks. By integrated Development Environment it means that all the steps that editor, compiler, burner are integrated in the same software.
In case of Arduino all these steps are performed in single software which is called the Arduino IDE. As most of you might have known that in order to program a microcontroller one need to write the code in the editor, and then compile that code in the compiler after which you get the HEX file of that code and later upload that HEX file in the microcontroller IC using another program. The care should be taken while configuring the Arduino MICRO pins. The Arduino MICRO can also be programmed in the similar way that is the programming of the Arduino MICRO is not different from that of the Arduino UNO however it should be kept in mind that Arduino MICRO has different number of pins and different pin configuration. In the post on the Arduino UNO we learned that the Arduino UNO can easily be programmed using the Arduino IDE.
Another important thing is that the Arduino MICRO has a JTAG interface which Arduino UNO, NANO and PRO MINI lack(Introduction to Arduino MICRO). It is one of the most useful quirks of the Arduino MICRO. The microcontroller on which Arduino MICRO is based has on chip USB interface so the user does not need to connect the FTDI cable and the module and neither the designer needs to add additional IC. In addition in case of the Arduino UNO and NANO the designer needs to add the additional IC apart from the microcontroller which acts as the bridge for USB and UART and thus program the boards. It should be noted that in case of the Arduino PRO MINI the board does not have the on board USB port due to which the user has to connect the FTDI cable and the USB to UART converter module in order to program the Arduino PRO MINI board. The Arduino MICRO board looks like the one in the following image:Īn important point worth mentioning here is that the Arduino MICRO has USB connector on board for programming and monitoring the board. Arduino UNO, NANO and PRO MINI also have one UART, one SPI and one I2C interface on board.
Arduino MICRO has one UART, one Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) computer bus and one Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) computer bus. Arduino MICRO has total 24 Digital Input / Output pins out of which 7 are PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) enabled and 12 analog pins but they are not so much straightforward as in the case of Arduino UNO, NANO and PRO MINI as we will see later. Arduino MICRO as stated earlier is the smallest microcontroller development board and can easily be mounted on the breadboard which makes it popular for designing the prototypes of the embedded systems. I will discuss the analog pins in detail in the later section. The Arduino MICRO has unique feature in terms of the analog pins it has total 12 analog pins out of which 2 are dedicated analog pins and other has added functionality. The number of analog pins determines the number of the analog sensors to which the Arduino Microcontroller development board can communicate simultaneously. For example the DIP package of the ATMEGA328P has total analog pins whereas the flat package of the ATMEGA328P has 8 analog pins. Depending upon the package of the ATMEGA328P the analog pins can be either 6 or 8. It is important to note here that the Arduino UNO, NANO and PRO MINI all development boards are based on the same microcontroller IC that is the ATMEGA328P but differ in the package used. This microcontroller IC has many perks which makes it more reliable and useful as compared to that of the Arduino UNO and Arduino PRO MINI.
Arduino MICRO is an open-source microcontroller development board and it is based on the ATMEGA32U4 microcontroller IC.