Serial Interface

Lecture 12
Data Communication
Name some of the device-to-device data
transfer technologies, such as:
• USB
• …?
Serial Interfaces
• USB
• HDMI
• FireWire (IEEE 1394 interface)
• Ethernet
• RS-232
• RS-422, RS-423, RS-485
• I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit)
• SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus)
• DMX512 (to control stage lighting and effects)
• MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
• SpaceWire (spacecraft communication network)
Serial vs Parallel

Note: Ground line between both sides omitted

PC software
HyperTerminal
• The serial port is one way for two computers/systems
can communicate with each other.

• In this class, it is used between our microcontroller-

based system and a computer (PC).

• PC terminal emulator is a tool used to test/debug the

program for serial communication between two
systems.

• HyperTerminal software is one of the PC terminal

emulator tools.
– It can be downloaded from the internet (also available on the
class D2L)
Other terminal emulators
• There are other PC terminal emulators in the market.

• The one that is available in the computers in ECC 216 is via PIC-C
Compiler.

• On the computer, click Start (the window logo at the bottom left corner of
the screen) -> All Programs -> PIC-C folder -> PIC C Compiler.
LPC2378 UARTs
LPC2378 Serial Peripherals

• UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver-

Transmitter)
• SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface)
• I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit )
UARTs
LPC2378
LPC2378 - UART
• 4 UARTs: UART 0/2/3 and UART1
– UART1 is identical to UART0/2/3, with the addition of a modem
interface.
• 16 byte Receive and Transmit FIFOs.
• Receiver FIFO trigger points at 1, 4, 8, and 14 bytes.
• Built-in baud rate generator.
• Either software or hardware flow control can be
implemented.
• UART1: Standard modem interface signals included (CTS, DCD,
DTS, DTR, RI, RTS).