Pulse Width Modulation (PWM): Introduction

►Introduction

Pulse width Modulation or PWM is one of the powerful techniques used in control systems
today. They are not only employed in wide range of control application which includes: speed
control, power control, measurement and communication. This tutorial will take you through the
PWM basics and implementation of PWM on 8051 and AVR microcontrollers.

►Basic Principal of PWM

Pulse-width Modulation is achived with the help of a square wave whose duty cycle is changed
to get a varying voltage output as a result of average value of waveform. A mathematical
explaination of this is given below.

Consider a square wave shown in the figure above.

Ton is the time for which the output is high and Toff is time for which output is low. Let Ttotal be
time period of the wave such that,

Duty cycle of a square wave is defined as

The output voltage varies with duty cycle as...

So you can see from the final equation the output voltage can be directly varied by varying the
Ton value.

If Ton is 0, Vout is also 0.

if Ton is Ttotal then Vout is Vin or say maximum.

This was all about theory behind PWM. Now lets take a look at the practical implementation of
PWM on microcontrollers.

►Idea Behind Implementation

The basic idea behind PWM implementation on 8051 is using timers and switching port pin
high/low at defined intervals. As we have discussed in the introduction of PWM that by changing
the Ton time, we can vary the width of square wave keeping same time period of the square wave.

We will be using 8051 Timer0 in Mode 0. Values for high and low level will be loaded in such a
way that total delay remains same. If for high level we load a value X in TH0 then for low level
TH0 will be loaded with 255-X so that total remains as 255.

►Assembly Code Example

►Timer setup for PWM

CODE:
        PWMPIN EQU P1.0         ; PWM output pin
PWM_SETUP:
        MOV TMOD,#00H           ; Timer0 in Mode 0
        MOV R7, #160            ; Set pulse width control
        ; The value loaded in R7 is value X as
        ; discussed above.
        SETB EA         ; Enable Interrupts
        SETB ET0                ; Enable Timer 0 Interrupt
        SETB TR0                ; Start Timer
        RET
 

►Interrupt Service Routine

CODE:
TIMER_0_INTERRUPT:
        JB F0, HIGH_DONE        ; If F0 flag is set then we just
finished
                                ; the high section of the
LOW_DONE:                       ; cycle so Jump to HIGH_DONE
        SETB F0                 ; Make F0=1 to indicate start of
high section
        SETB PWMPIN             ; Make PWM output pin High
        MOV TH0, R7             ; Load high byte of timer with
R7
                                ; (pulse width control value)
        CLR TF0                 ; Clear the Timer 0 interrupt
flag
        RETI                    ; Return from Interrupt to where
                                        ; the program came from
HIGH_DONE:
        CLR F0                  ; Make F0=0 to indicate start of
low section
        CLR PWMPIN              ; Make PWM output pin low
        MOV A, #0FFH    ; Move FFH (255) to A
        CLR C                   ; Clear C (the carry bit) so it
does
                                        ; not affect the
subtraction
        SUBB A, R7              ; Subtract R7 from A. A = 255 -
R7.
        MOV TH0, A              ; so the value loaded into TH0 +
R7 = 255
        CLR TF0                 ; Clear the Timer 0 interrupt
flag
        RETI                    ; Return from Interrupt to where
                                ; the program came from
 

In your main program you need to call this PWM_SETUP routine and your controller will have a
PWM output. Timer Interrupt service routine will take care of PWM in the background. The
width of PWM can be changed by changing the value of R7 register. In above example I am
using 160, you can choose any value from 0 to 255. R7 = 0 will give you o/p 0V approx and R7
= 255 will give you 5V approx.

You can also make use of Timer1 if you want. And the output pin can be changed to whatever
pin you want.
►C Code Example

►Timer setup for PWM in C

CODE:
//Global variables and definition
#define PWMPIN P1_0
unsigned char pwm_width;

void pwm_setup(){
        TMOD = 0;
        pwm_width = 160;
        EA = 1;
        ET0 = 1;
        TR0 = 1;
}
 

►Interrupt Service Routine

CODE:
void timer0() interrupt 1 {
        if(!F0) {       //Start of High level
                F0 = 1; //Set flag
                PWMPIN = 1;     //Set PWM o/p pin
                TH0 = pwm_width;        //Load timer
                TF0 = 0;                //Clear interrupt flag
                return;         //Return
        }
        else {  //Start of Low level
                F0 = 0; //Clear flag
                PWMPIN = 0;     //Clear PWM o/p pin
                TH0 = 255 - pwm_width;  //Load timer
                TF0 = 0;        //Clear Interrupt flag
                return;         //return
        }
}