How firmwares communicate to the electronic devices to perform its operations?

Question

Almost all electronic devices comes with firmwares. I know it is stored in ROM (Read only memory) so it becomes non-volatile (no power source required to hold the contents from getting erased like RAM)

What I want to know is "How firmwares communicate to the electronic devices to perform its operations?" Let say there is a small roller.. On press of a button, how it makes it to move? Can someone please explain what is residing behind, to make it happen.. I think it may require a little brief explanation to unwind it..

Also what is the most popular language used for coding firmwares?

Answer 1

Modern hardware like you're describing has a program stored in ROM and an all-purpose microcomputer (CPU) executing that program.

The CPU reads information from ROM by setting up addresses on its address bus and then asking the ROM to tell it the value stored at that location. There's something like a read pulse being raised (on a separate line) to tell the ROM to make the value accessible on the lines of the data bus. That, in a nutshell, is reading.

To get the hardware to do something, the CPU basically executes a kind of write operation. It puts a value, which is just a bunch of bits if you want to look at it that way, on the address bus to select a certain device and perhaps function on that device, then it raises another signal line saying "write!" The device that recognizes its address on the address bus responds to that signal by accepting the data from the data bus and then performing whatever its function is. Typically, one of the data bus bits will be connected within the output device to a power output stage, i.e. a transistor stronger than the ones used just for computation, and that transistor will connect some electrical device to current sufficient to make it move/glow/whatever.

Tiny, cheap devices are coded in assembly language to save costs for ROM; in industrial quantities, even small amounts of memory can affect price. The assembly language is specific to the CPU; some chips called "8051", "6502" and "Atmel (something or other)" are popular. Bigger devices with more complex requirements may have their firmware written in C or a C-like dialect, which makes programming a little easier than assembler. The bigges ones even run C++ code. Compiled, of course.

Answer 2

In most systems there are special memory addresses which are used for I/O. Reading and writing on such addresses executes some function instead of just moving data around. In x86 systems there are also special I/O instructions IN and OUT for that.

The simplest case is called general parallel I/O (GPIO), where you can read or write data directly from/to external electrical pins on the device. There are several memory addresses, called registers, where you can read data from the port (voltage near 0 = 0, near supply voltage = 1), where you can write data to the port, and where you can define whether a particular pin is input (the corresponding bit is typically 0) or output (the bit is 1). Every microcontroller has GPIO.

So in your example the button could be connected to a pin set to input, which the software could sense. It would typically do this every 10ms and only react if it has a stable value for several reads, this is called debouncing. Then it would write a 1 to some output, which via some transistor for amplification could drive a motor. If it senses that you release the switch it could turn the motor off again by writing a 0. And so on, this program would run until you turn the device off.

There are lots of other I/O devices for other purposes with typically hundreds of registers for controlling them. If you want to see more you could look into the data sheet of some microcontroller. For example, here is the data sheet of ATtiny4/5/9/10, a very small controller from the Atmel AVR family.

Today most firmware is written in C, except for the smallest devices and for a little special code for handling resets and interrupts, which is written in assembly language.