General

I2C, or Inter-integrated Circuit, is a communications protocol common in microcontroller-based systems, particularly for interfacing with sensors, memory devices and liquid crystal displays. Similar to SPI, it’s a synchronous protocol because it uses a clock line. The I2C protocol, however, uses less pins and is a much more robust standard.

SPI, short for Serial Peripheral Interface, is a communication protocol common in microcontroller systems. Sensors, liquid crystal displays and memory cards are examples of devices that use SPI. It is faster than both UART and I2C although it also has its disadvantages.

Maybe you’ve used an HD4480-based LCD before (pictured) and you know that it requires a potentiometer for adjusting contrast.  Is there a way to remove this potentiometer completely?

I got plenty of questions regarding microcontroller power outputs and requirements especially for popular ones like PIC or the Arduino.  So I decided to answer all of them in this post. Technically, Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black are not microcontrollers (I like to call them microcomputers) but I decided to …