ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the general structure and organization of memory in microcontrollers, in particular medium-end programmable integrated circuits (PIC). It discusses basic memory concepts, including word, address, and memory size. The chapter describes the two methods to organize memory in microcontrollers: linear memory and paged memory. It also discusses several technologies used for memory fabrication and explains how memory is organized in medium-end PIC microcontrollers. There are two main methods of organizing memory in microcontrollers: as a single block or by sets of blocks called pages. Memory in PIC microcontrollers is organized according to the Harvard architecture. Therefore, there are two independent memory spaces: one for program and one for data. In PIC microcontrollers, the data memory implemented using random access memory technology is organized in 8-bit words. Similar to program memory, data memory is also divided in different pages; for data memory these pages are called banks.
