UART Spec
UART Spec
Specification
Author: Jacob Gorban
[email protected]
Rev. 0.6
August 11, 2002
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OpenCores UART16550 core specifications 8/11/2002
Revision History
Contents
Introduction 1
IO ports 2
Clocks 3
Registers 4
Operation 13
Architecture 15
1
Introduction
The UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) core provides serial
communication capabilities, which allow communication with modem or other external
devices, like another computer using a serial cable and RS232 protocol. This core is
designed to be maximally compatible with the industry standard National
Semiconductors 16550A device.
Features:
2
IO ports
2.1 WISHBONE interface signals
Port Width Direction Description
CLK 1 Input Blocks clock input
WB_RST_I 1 Input Asynchronous Reset
WB_ADDR_I 5 or 3 Input Used for register selection
WB_SEL_I 4 Input Select signal
WB_DAT_I 32 or 8 Input Data input
WB_DAT_O 32 or 8 Output Data output
WB_WE_I 1 Input Write or read cycle selection
WB_STB_I 1 Input Specifies transfer cycle
WB_CYC_I 1 Input A bus cycle is in progress
WB_ACK_O 1 Output Acknowledge of a transfer
3
Clocks
Clocks table:
4
Registers
4.1 Registers list
Name Address Width Access Description
Receiver Buffer 0 8 R Receiver FIFO output
Transmitter Holding 0 8 W Transmit FIFO input
Register (THR)
Interrupt Enable 1 8 RW Enable/Mask interrupts
generated by the UART
Interrupt Identification 2 8 R Get interrupt information
FIFO Control 2 8 W Control FIFO options
Line Control Register 3 8 RW Control connection
Modem Control 4 8 W Controls modem
Line Status 5 8 R Status information
Modem Status 6 8 R Modem Status
In addition, there are 2 Clock Divisor registers that together form one 16-bit.
The registers can be accessed when the 7th (DLAB) bit of the Line Control Register is set
to 1. At this time the above registers at addresses 0-1 cant be accessed.
When using 32-bit data bus interface, additional read-only registers are available for
debug purposes:
Type Control
Bit 3
Bit 2
Bit 1
Note that the receiver always checks the first stop bit only.
3 RW Parity Enable
0 No parity
1 Parity bit is generated on each outgoing character and
is checked on each incoming one.
4 RW Even Parity select
0 Odd number of 1 is transmitted and checked in each
word (data and parity combined). In other words, if the data has an
even number of 1 in it, then the parity bit is 1.
7-5 W Ignored
Reset Value: 0
4.10 Debug 1
This register is only available when the core has 32-bit data bus and 5-bit address bus.
It is read only and is provided for debugging purposes of chip testing as it is not part of
the original UART16550 device specifications. Reading from the does not influence
cores bahaviour.
4.11 Debug 2
This register is only available when the core has 32-bit data bus and 5-bit address bus.
It is read only and is provided for debugging purposes of chip testing as it is not part of
the original UART16550 device specifications. Reading from the does not influence
cores bahaviour.
5
Operation
This UART core is very similar in operation to the standard 16550 UART chip with the
main exception being that only the FIFO mode is supported. The scratch register is
removed, as it serves no purpose.
This core can operate in 8-bit data bus mode or in 32-bit bus mode, which is now the
default mode.
The 32-bit mode is fully WISHBONE compatible and it uses the WISHBONE [SEL_I]
signal to properly receive and return 8-bit data on 32-bit data bus. The 8-bit version might
have problems in various WISHBONE implementations because a 32-bit master reading
from 8-bit bus can expect data on different bytes of the 4-byte word, depending on the
register address.
Also, in 32-bit data bus mode, the [ADR_I] is 5 and not 3 bits wide.
In addition, in the 32-bit data bus mode a debug interface is present in the system. This
interface has 2 32-bit registers that can be read to provide non-intrusive look into the
cores registers and other internal values of importance.
The selection between 32- and 8-bits data bus modes is performed by defining
DATA_BUS_WIDTH_8 in uart_defines.v, uart_top.v or on the compiler/synthesizer tool
command line.
5.1 Initialization
Upon reset the core performs the following tasks:
Set the Line Control Register to the desired line control parameters. Set bit 7 to 1
to allow access to the Divisor Latches.
6
Architecture
The core implements the WISNBONE SoC bus interface for communication with the
system. It has an 8-bit data bus for compatibility reason. The core requires one interrupt.
It requires 2 pads in the chip (serial in and serial out) and, optionally, another six modem
control signals, which can otherwise be implemented using general purpose I/Os on the
chip.
Divisor Baud
Latch Generator
Registers Logic
Line
Status
Register
WISHBONE
Signals
Line
Receiver
Contrrol
Logic
Register
Receiver SRX_I
Receiver
Shift
FIFO
Register
FIFO
Contrrol
Register Transmitter
WISHBONE
Logic
bus
Interface
Trasmitter STX_O
Trasmitter
Shift
FIFO
Register
Interrupt
ID
Register INT_O
Interrupt
Logic
Interrupt
Enable
Register
RTS_O
Modem CTS_I
Sattus
Register DTR_O
DSR_I
Modem
Signals
Logic
DCD_I
Modem
control
register RI_I