CIRCUIT CONFIGURATION AND METHODS OF STORAGE MANAGEMENT AND APPLICATION OF USER PROGRAMS IN SMALL CONTROL UNITS

摘要

The invention relates to a circuit configuration for storage management and for the execution of user programs in small control units using a microcontroller (2). A microcontroller (2) is used having only a central processing unit (4), a volatile memory (6a), a non-volatile memory (6b) and an interface (10a, 10b) as essential components. An additional non-volatile readable and writable memory unit (6d) is configured as a serial memory unit and is connected to the microcontroller (2) as a separate unit via the interface (10a, 10b). The invention also concerns different methods for executing user programs by using said circuit configuration. In a first method, the entire user program is read out from the separate memory (6d) and is serially interpreted by the microcontroller (2). In a second method, the entire user program is copied into and afterward directly interpreted by an internal memory (6a) of the microcontroller (2) during the runup phase of the flow of control.