LPC176x UART Driver

In my last post (here), I claimed that FIFOs are often used in UART drivers. Here I will show a UART driver that utilizes dual FIFOs, one for transmit and one for receive. A universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) is a device that receives and transmits data without a known clock relationship to the connecting device. This allows each device to send data whenever it wants. This is in stark contrast to the SPI and I2C buses where the slave device can’t send data without the master first initiating a bus transfer. UARTs are very versatile and are in wide use. They are most commonly found in RS-232 ports on PCs.

The basic structure behind a UART driver is a negotiation process between the asynchronous hardware and the user’s code. FIFOs are used to aide this process. For transmitting data, it is desirable for the user to drop the data off at any time and forget about the actual serial transmission. This is where the FIFO comes in. The UART driver just takes the data and puts it in a FIFO and returns to the user. In another thread (driven by interrupts) the driver sends all the data in the FIFO as fast as it can. The receive path is very similar. The driver, again in an interrupt driven thread, transfers all received data into a FIFO. The user periodically checks if there is any new data and pulls it out at its own speed.

UARTs are often used for printing ASCII to a debug console. Most of the UARTs I have made have only been used for this purpose. For this reason it is very important to have a good method for converting numbers (integer and floating-point) to a sequence of ASCII characters. Of course, you could use a sprintf-like function, however, these are very slow. Even the embedded versions of these libraries produce terribly inefficient code (I dare you to follow the call stack of a printf function). I’m not a big fan of Arduinos, but I must say that the Arduino serial printing functions are very nice. There are no format strings to parse. Instead, the user just calls a sequence of print functions to produce the desired ASCII. My UART driver has an integrated printing library similar to the functions found in the Arduino library. This may be better off separated from the actual driver, however, I feel it fits fine into this code. You’ll notice a lot of similarity between my print functions and the Arduino serial library.

Header File

/************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2011, Nic McDonald
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
   with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*************************************************************************

 Information:
   File Name  :  uart3.h
   Author(s)  :  Nic McDonald
   Hardware   :  LPCXpresso LPC1768
   Purpose    :  UART 3 Driver

*************************************************************************
 Modification History:
   Revision   Date         Author    Description of Revision
   1.00       05/30/2011   NGM       initial

*************************************************************************
 Assumptions:
   All print functions assume the UART is enabled.  Calling these
   functions while the UART is disabled produced undefined behavior.

************************************************************************/

#ifndef _UART3_H_
#define _UART3_H_

/* includes */
#include <stdint.h>

/* defines */
#define SW_FIFO_SIZE            512
#define UART3_DISABLED          0x00
#define UART3_OPERATIONAL       0x01
#define UART3_OVERFLOW          0x02
#define UART3_PARITY_ERROR      0x03
#define UART3_FRAMING_ERROR     0x04
#define UART3_BREAK_DETECTED    0x05
#define UART3_CHAR_TIMEOUT      0x06

/* typedefs */

/* functions */
void uart3_enable(uint32_t baudrate);
void uart3_disable(void);
void uart3_printByte(uint8_t c);
void uart3_printBytes(uint8_t* buf, uint32_t len);
void uart3_printString(char* buf); // must be null terminated
void uart3_printInt32(int32_t n, uint8_t base);
void uart3_printUint32(uint32_t n, uint8_t base);
void uart3_printDouble(double n, uint8_t frac_digits);
uint32_t uart3_available(void);
uint8_t uart3_peek(void);
uint8_t uart3_read(void);
uint8_t uart3_txStatus(void);
uint8_t uart3_rxStatus(void);

#endif /* _UART3_H_ */

Source File

/************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2011, Nic McDonald
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
   with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*************************************************************************

 Information:
   File Name  :  uart3.c
   Author(s)  :  Nic McDonald
   Hardware   :  LPCXpresso LPC1768
   Purpose    :  UART 3 Driver

*************************************************************************
 Modification History:
   Revision   Date         Author    Description of Revision
   1.00       05/30/2011   NGM       initial

*************************************************************************
 Theory of Operation:
   This provides a simple UART driver with accompanying print functions 
   for converting integer and floating point numbers to bytes.

************************************************************************/

#include "uart3.h"
#include "fifo.h"
#include "LPC17xx.h"

/* local defines */
#define RX_TRIGGER_ONE          0x0
#define RX_TRIGGER_FOUR         0x1
#define RX_TRIGGER_EIGHT        0x2
#define RX_TRIGGER_FOURTEEN     0x3
#define RX_TRIGGER_LEVEL        RX_TRIGGER_FOURTEEN
#define RLS_INTERRUPT           0x03
#define RDA_INTERRUPT           0x02
#define CTI_INTERRUPT           0x06
#define THRE_INTERRUPT          0x01
#define LSR_RDR                 (1<<0)
#define LSR_OE                  (1<<1)
#define LSR_PE                  (1<<2)
#define LSR_FE                  (1<<3)
#define LSR_BI                  (1<<4)
#define LSR_THRE                (1<<5)
#define LSR_TEMT                (1<<6)
#define LSR_RXFE                (1<<7)

/* local persistent variables */
static uint8_t uart3_tx_sts = UART3_DISABLED;
static uint8_t uart3_rx_sts = UART3_DISABLED;
static uint8_t uart3_txBuffer[SW_FIFO_SIZE];
static uint8_t uart3_rxBuffer[SW_FIFO_SIZE];
static FIFO txFifo;
static FIFO rxFifo;

/* private function declarations */
static inline void uart3_interruptsOn(void);
static inline void uart3_interruptsOff(void);

uint32_t rdaInterrupts = 0;
uint32_t ctiInterrupts = 0;

/* public functions */
void uart3_enable(uint32_t baudrate) {
    uint32_t fdiv, pclk;

    // initial the SW FIFOs
    fifo_init(&txFifo, SW_FIFO_SIZE, (uint8_t*)uart3_txBuffer);
    fifo_init(&rxFifo, SW_FIFO_SIZE, (uint8_t*)uart3_rxBuffer);

    // set pin function to RxD3 and TxD3
    LPC_PINCON->PINSEL0 &= ~0x0000000F;
    LPC_PINCON->PINSEL0 |=  0x0000000A;

    // give power to PCUART3
    LPC_SC->PCONP |= (1 << 25);

    // set peripheral clock selection for UART3
    LPC_SC->PCLKSEL1 &= ~(3 << 18); // clear bits
    LPC_SC->PCLKSEL1 |=  (1 << 18); // set to "01" (full speed)
    pclk = SystemCoreClock;

    // set to 8 databits, no parity, and 1 stop bit
    LPC_UART3->LCR = 0x03;

    // enable 'Divisor Latch Access" (must disable later)
    LPC_UART3->LCR |= (1 << 7);

    // do baudrate calculation
    fdiv = (pclk / (16 * baudrate));
    LPC_UART3->DLM = (fdiv >> 8) & 0xFF;
    LPC_UART3->DLL = (fdiv) & 0xFF;

    // disable 'Divisor Latch Access"
    LPC_UART3->LCR &= ~(1 << 7);

    // set the number of bytes received before a RDA interrupt
    LPC_UART3->FCR |= (RX_TRIGGER_LEVEL << 6);

    // enable Rx and Tx FIFOs and clear FIFOs
    LPC_UART3->FCR |= 0x01;

    // clear Rx and Tx FIFOs
    LPC_UART3->FCR |= 0x06;

    // add the interrupt handler into the interrupt vector
    NVIC_EnableIRQ(UART3_IRQn);

    // set the priority of the interrupt
    NVIC_SetPriority(UART3_IRQn, 30); // '0' is highest

    // turn on UART3 interrupts
    uart3_interruptsOn();

    // set to operational status
    uart3_tx_sts = UART3_OPERATIONAL;
    uart3_rx_sts = UART3_OPERATIONAL;
}

void uart3_disable(void) {
    // disable interrupt
    NVIC_DisableIRQ(UART3_IRQn);

    // turn off all interrupt sources
    uart3_interruptsOff();

    // clear software FIFOs
    fifo_clear(&txFifo);
    fifo_clear(&rxFifo);

    // set to disabled status
    uart3_tx_sts = UART3_DISABLED;
    uart3_rx_sts = UART3_DISABLED;
}

void uart3_printByte(uint8_t b) {
    uint8_t thr_empty;

    // turn off UART3 interrupts while accessing shared resources
    uart3_interruptsOff();

    // determine if the THR register is empty
    thr_empty = (LPC_UART3->LSR & LSR_THRE);

    // both checks MUST be here.  there is a slight chance that
    //  the THR is empty but chars still reside in the SW Tx FIFO
    if (thr_empty && fifo_isEmpty(&txFifo)) {
        LPC_UART3->THR = b;
    }
    else {
        // turn UART3 interrupts back on to allow Sw Tx FIFO emptying
        uart3_interruptsOn();

        // wait for one slot available in the SW Tx FIFO
        while (fifo_isFull(&txFifo));

        // turn interrupts back off
        uart3_interruptsOff();

        // add character to SW Tx FIFO
        fifo_put(&txFifo, b); // <- this is the only case of txFifo putting
    }

    // turn UART3 interrupts back on
    uart3_interruptsOn();
}

void uart3_printBytes(uint8_t* buf, uint32_t len) {
    // transfer all bytes to HW Tx FIFO
    while ( len != 0 ) {
        // send next byte
        uart3_printByte(*buf);

        // update the buf ptr and length
        buf++;
        len--;
    }
}

void uart3_printString(char* buf) {
    while ( *buf != '\0' ) {
        // send next byte
        uart3_printByte((uint8_t)*buf);

        // update the buf ptr
        buf++;
    }
}

void uart3_printInt32(int32_t n, uint8_t base) {
    uint32_t i = 0;

    // print '-' for negative numbers, also negate
    if (n < 0) {
        uart3_printByte((uint8_t)'-');
        n = ((~n) + 1);
    }

    // cast to unsigned and print using uint32_t printer
    i = n;
    uart3_printUint32(i, base);
}

void uart3_printUint32(uint32_t n, uint8_t base) {
    uint32_t i = 0;
    uint8_t buf[8 * sizeof(uint32_t)]; // binary is the largest

    // check for zero case, print and bail out if so
    if (n == 0) {
        uart3_printByte((uint8_t)'0');
        return;
    }

    while (n > 0) {
        buf[i] = n % base;
        i++;
        n /= base;
    }

    for (; i > 0; i--) {
        if (buf[i - 1] < 10)
            uart3_printByte((uint8_t)('0' + buf[i - 1]));
        else
            uart3_printByte((uint8_t)('A' + buf[i - 1] - 10));
    }
}

void uart3_printDouble(double n, uint8_t frac_digits) {
    uint8_t i;
    uint32_t i32;
    double rounding, remainder;

    // test for negatives
    if (n < 0.0) {
        uart3_printByte((uint8_t)'-');
        n = -n;
    }

    // round correctly so that print(1.999, 2) prints as "2.00"
    rounding = 0.5;
    for (i=0; i<frac_digits; i++)
        rounding /= 10.0;
    n += rounding;

    // extract the integer part of the number and print it
    i32 = (uint32_t)n;
    remainder = n - (double)i32;
    uart3_printUint32(i32, 10);

    // print the decimal point, but only if there are digits beyond
    if (frac_digits > 0)
        uart3_printByte((uint8_t)'.');

    // extract digits from the remainder one at a time
    while (frac_digits-- > 0) {
        remainder *= 10.0;
        i32 = (uint32_t)remainder;
        uart3_printUint32(i32, 10);
        remainder -= i32;
    }
}

uint32_t uart3_available(void) {
    uint32_t avail;
    uart3_interruptsOff();
    avail = fifo_available(&rxFifo);
    uart3_interruptsOn();
    return avail;
}

uint8_t uart3_peek(void) {
    uint8_t ret;
    uart3_interruptsOff();
    ret = fifo_peek(&rxFifo);
    uart3_interruptsOn();
    return ret;
}

uint8_t uart3_read(void) {
    uint8_t ret;
    uart3_interruptsOff();
    ret = fifo_get(&rxFifo);
    uart3_interruptsOn();
    return ret;
}

uint8_t uart3_txStatus(void) {
    return uart3_tx_sts;
}

uint8_t uart3_rxStatus(void) {
    return uart3_rx_sts;
}

/* private functions */
void UART3_IRQHandler(void) {
    uint8_t intId;  // interrupt identification
    uint8_t lsrReg; // line status register

    // get the interrupt identification from the IIR register
    intId = ((LPC_UART3->IIR) >> 1) & 0x7;

    // RLS (receive line status) interrupt
    if ( intId == RLS_INTERRUPT ) {
        // get line status register value (clears interrupt)
        lsrReg = LPC_UART3->LSR;

        // determine type of error and set Rx status accordingly
        if (lsrReg & LSR_OE)
            uart3_rx_sts = UART3_OVERFLOW; // won't happen when using SW fifo
        else if (lsrReg & LSR_PE)
            uart3_rx_sts = UART3_PARITY_ERROR;
        else if (lsrReg & LSR_FE)
            uart3_rx_sts = UART3_FRAMING_ERROR;
        else if (lsrReg & LSR_BI)
            uart3_rx_sts = UART3_BREAK_DETECTED;
    }
    // RDA (receive data available) interrupt
    else if ( intId == RDA_INTERRUPT )      {
        // this interrupt occurs when the number of bytes in the
        //  HW Rx FIFO are greater than or equal to the trigger level 
        // (FCR[7:6])

        // read out bytes
        // clears interrupt when HW Rx FIFO is below trigger level FCR[7:6]
        // the number of loops should be the trigger level (or +1)
        while ((LPC_UART3->LSR) & 0x1)
            fifo_put(&rxFifo, LPC_UART3->RBR);
        rdaInterrupts++;
    }
    // CTI (character timeout indicator) interrupt
    else if ( intId == CTI_INTERRUPT )      {
        // this interrupt occurs when the HW Rx FIFO contains at least one
        //  char and nothing has been received in 3.5 to 4.5 char times.
        // read out all remaining bytes
        while ((LPC_UART3->LSR) & 0x1)
            fifo_put(&rxFifo, LPC_UART3->RBR);
        ctiInterrupts++;
    }
    // THRE (transmit holding register empty) interrupt
    else if ( intId == THRE_INTERRUPT ) {
        uint8_t i;
        // transfer 16 bytes if available, if not, transfer all you can
        for (i=0; ((i<16) && (!fifo_isEmpty(&txFifo))); i++)
            LPC_UART3->THR = fifo_get(&txFifo);
    }
}

static inline void uart3_interruptsOn(void) {
    LPC_UART3->IER = 0x07; // RBR, THRE, RLS
}

static inline void uart3_interruptsOff(void) {
    LPC_UART3->IER = 0x00; // !RBR, !THRE, !RLS
}

Handling FIFOs


The LPC176x UART design has hardware FIFOs built-in. Having these hardware FIFOs makes the UART hardware very efficient. However, handling the data flow between the hardware FIFOs, the software FIFOs, and the user can be very tricky. There are many situations that must be considered. The main issue is synchronization (the lack of such will cause data corruption). A correct UART driver design must always send the data in-order. Issues will occur if the driver mistakenly assumes that the software FIFO is empty and adds data directly to the hardware FIFO. If you look at the ‘print_byte()’ function, it has a lot of checks to ensure this does not happen. Throughout the code, the driver is constantly turning on and off the UART interrupts. This is because the interrupts can trigger at any time. While accessing shared memory, the interrupt code must be stalled. This is a tricky concept and is the basis for many embedded system software errors.

2012
02/05
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Embedded Systems
TAGS











Write comment

Software FIFO

The base of any embedded system is the drivers that interact with the hardware. 99% of the time, these drivers use interrupts to handle the asynchronous behavior of hardware. A crucial component in driver development is often a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer that allows the hardware interrupt handler to act independently of the regular system code. FIFOs allow a system to have a ‘producer’ and ‘consumer’ of data. The rate at which the FIFO is filled and emptied does not have to be the same on both sides. This asynchronous behavior allows for bursty data flows. A basic FIFO has two interfaces: a write interface that allows some code to write data to it; and a read interface that allows other code to pull data from it.

Header File

Developing a precise interface specification before implementation will make the design process faster and less buggy. Here is the specification to my FIFO:

/************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2011, Nic McDonald
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met: 

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above 
   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following 
   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided 
   with the distribution. 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS 
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT 
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, 
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS 
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR 
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE 
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*************************************************************************

 Information:
   File Name  :  fifo.h
   Author(s)  :  Nic McDonald
   Hardware   :  Any
   Purpose    :  First In First Out Buffer

*************************************************************************
 Modification History:
   Revision   Date         Author    Description of Revision
   1.00       05/30/2011   NGM       initial

************************************************************************/
#ifndef _FIFO_H_
#define _FIFO_H_

/* includes */
#include <stdint.h>

/* defines */
#define FIFO_GOOD       0x00
#define FIFO_OVERFLOW   0x01
#define FIFO_UNDERFLOW  0x02

/* typedefs */
typedef struct {
    volatile uint32_t size;
    volatile uint8_t* data;
    volatile uint8_t  status;
    volatile uint32_t putIndex;
    volatile uint32_t getIndex;
    volatile uint32_t used;
} FIFO;

/* functions */
void     fifo_init(FIFO* f, uint32_t size, uint8_t* data);
uint32_t fifo_isFull(FIFO* f);
uint32_t fifo_isEmpty(FIFO* f);
uint8_t  fifo_get(FIFO* f);
void     fifo_put(FIFO* f, uint8_t c);
uint8_t  fifo_peek(FIFO* f);
uint32_t fifo_available(FIFO* f);
void     fifo_clear(FIFO* f);
uint8_t  fifo_status(FIFO* f);

#endif // _FIFO_H_

Source File

It is important to design a FIFO to be robust even when the user abuses the interface specification. For instance, you don’t want the memory to become corrupted when the user reads from the FIFO when it is empty or when the user writes to the FIFO when it is full. The memory allocated to the FIFO may become corrupt, but the memory surrounding it should not. Here is the implementation behind the header file’s specification:

/************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2011, Nic McDonald
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met: 

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above 
   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following 
   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided 
   with the distribution. 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS 
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT 
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, 
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS 
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR 
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE 
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*************************************************************************

 Information:
   File Name  :  fifo.c
   Author(s)  :  Nic McDonald
   Hardware   :  Any
   Purpose    :  First In First Out Buffer

*************************************************************************
 Modification History:
   Revision   Date         Author    Description of Revision
   1.00       05/30/2011   NGM       initial

*************************************************************************
 Theory of Operation:
   This FIFO implementation provides a memory safe 'First In First Out'
   circular buffer.  If the operating conditions of a FIFO causes it
   to 'underflow' or 'overflow' the FIFO will not corrupt memory other
   than its own data buffer.  However, memory accesses into the buffer
   will be invalid.  If a FIFO 'underflows' or 'overflows', it should
   be re-initialized or cleared.

   Example Usage:
      volatile uint8_t fifo_buf[128];
      FIFO fifo;
      fifo_init(&fifo, 128, fifo_buf);

************************************************************************/

#include "fifo.h"

void fifo_init(FIFO* f, uint32_t size, uint8_t* data) {
    f->size     = size;
    f->data     = data;
    f->status   = FIFO_GOOD;
    f->putIndex = 0;
    f->getIndex = 0;
    f->used     = 0;
}

uint32_t fifo_isFull(FIFO* f) {
    return (f->used >= f->size);
}

uint32_t fifo_isEmpty(FIFO* f) {
    return (f->used == 0);
}

uint8_t fifo_get(FIFO* f) {
    uint8_t c;
    if (f->used > 0) {
        c = f->data[f->getIndex];
        f->getIndex = (f->getIndex+1) % f->size;
        f->used--;
        return c;
    }
    else {
        f->status = FIFO_UNDERFLOW;
        return 0;
    }
}

void fifo_put(FIFO* f, uint8_t c) {
    if (f->used >= f->size)
        f->status = FIFO_OVERFLOW;
    else {
        f->data[f->putIndex] = c;
        f->putIndex = (f->putIndex+1) % f->size;
        f->used++;
    }
}

uint8_t fifo_peek(FIFO* f) {
    return f->data[f->getIndex];
}

uint32_t fifo_available(FIFO* f) {
    return f->used;
}

void fifo_clear(FIFO* f) {
    f->status = FIFO_GOOD;
    f->putIndex = 0;
    f->getIndex = 0;
    f->used = 0;
}

uint8_t fifo_status(FIFO* f) {
    return f->status;
}

How to use a FIFO

Previously I mentioned that a FIFO is a method for synchronizing two asynchronous data flows. If these two data flows are on different threads (including interrupts), extreme care must be taken when accessing the FIFO. FIFOs are often used in UART drivers.

Let’s consider a case where a FIFO is used to bridge the gap between a UART receiver and some user code. A FIFO works great in this situation because UART data comes in very bursty and the user code may not be able to immediately handle the data. The FIFO allows the user to pull the data at its own speed, as long as the FIFO doesn’t overflow.

In this case there are two threads accessing the FIFO. The UART receive interrupt can come at any time and will interrupt the user’s code. The FIFOs functionality is heavily based on a variable that represents how many bytes are currently in the FIFO (in my code it is ‘used’). The interrupt code will be using the ‘fifo_put()’ function and the user code will be using the ‘fifo_get()’ function. Both functions modify the ‘used’ variable. If proper synchronization techniques are not taken, the interrupt code might call ‘fifo_put()’ right in the middle of the user calling ‘fifo_get()’. This could cause the ‘used’ variable to become corrupted and the FIFO would then be unusable. Fortunately in the interrupt case, the user code just needs to temporarily turn off the UART receive interrupt while calling ‘fifo_get()’. For a multi-threaded design, semaphores should be used to properly access the FIFO functions without corrupting the variables.

2012
02/04
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Embedded Systems
TAGS





1 comment

LPC176x I2C Driver

I’ve had a few requests for a LPC176x I2C driver.  During my development process on the LPC1768 LPCXpresso board, I wanted to design a simple I2C driver but I couldn’t find any simple examples.  Most of the drivers out there are complex and don’t have easy functionality for those who need a simple master only send/receive interface. I believe this one is simple enough to learn from.

Header File

Before writing a driver, you first need to make a specification of the interface.  I wanted my driver to be a basic send/receive interface where the slave is specified by address and the buffer is pre-allocated.  Here is the header file to my driver.

/************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2011, Nic McDonald
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met: 

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above 
   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following 
   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided 
   with the distribution. 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS 
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT 
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, 
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS 
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR 
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE 
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*************************************************************************

 Information:
   File Name  :  i2c0.c
   Author(s)  :  Nic McDonald
   Hardware   :  LPCXpresso LPC1768
   Purpose    :  I2C Driver

*************************************************************************
 Modification History:
   Revision   Date         Author    Description of Revision
   1.00       03/04/2011   NGM       initial

*************************************************************************
 Warning:
   This I2C implementation is only for master mode. It also only
   gives one transfer per transaction. This means that this driver
   only does 'send' or 'receive' per function call. The user functions 
   'receive' and 'send' are NOT thread safe.

************************************************************************/
#ifndef _I2C0_H_
#define _I2C0_H_

/* includes */
#include
#include
#include "LPC17xx.h"

/* defines */
#define MODE_100kbps 100000
#define MODE_400kbps 400000
#define MODE_1Mbps 1000000

/* typedefs */

/* functions */

// Initialize the I2C hardware.
void i2c0_init(uint32_t i2c_freq, uint8_t int_pri);

// Performs a I2C master send function.
// Returns the number of bytes sent successfully.
// Returns 0xFFFFFFFF if slave did not response on bus.
uint32_t i2c0_send(uint8_t address, uint8_t* buffer, uint32_t length);

// Performs a I2C master receive function.
// Returns the number of bytes received successfully.
// Returns 0xFFFFFFFF if slave did not response on bus.
uint32_t i2c0_recv(uint8_t address, uint8_t* buffer, uint32_t length);

/*** DEBUG ***/uint8_t* i2c_buf(void);
/*** DEBUG ***/uint32_t i2c_pos(void);

#endif /* _I2C0_H_ */

Source File

Now that we have a good interface, let’s see what we need to implement.

/************************************************************************
Copyright (c) 2011, Nic McDonald
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met: 

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above 
   copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following 
   disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided 
   with the distribution. 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS 
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT 
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, 
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS 
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR 
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE 
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

*************************************************************************

 Information:
   File Name  :  i2c0.c
   Author(s)  :  Nic McDonald
   Hardware   :  LPCXpresso LPC1768
   Purpose    :  I2C Driver

*************************************************************************
 Modification History:
   Revision   Date         Author    Description of Revision
   1.00       03/04/2011   NGM       initial

************************************************************************/
#include "i2c0.h"

// IC2 control bits
#define AA      (1 << 2)
#define SI      (1 << 3)
#define STO     (1 << 4)
#define STA     (1 << 5)
#define I2EN    (1 << 6)

// pointers setup by users functions
static volatile uint8_t  slave_address; // formatted by send or receive
static volatile uint8_t* buf;
static volatile uint32_t buf_len;
static volatile uint32_t num_transferred;
static volatile uint32_t i2c0_busy;

static inline uint8_t to_read_address(uint8_t address);
static inline uint8_t to_write_address(uint8_t address);

/*************DEBUG************************************/
uint8_t i2c_status_buf[100];
uint32_t i2c_status_pos;
uint8_t* i2c_buf(void) {return i2c_status_buf;}
uint32_t i2c_pos(void) {return i2c_status_pos;}
/*************DEBUG************************************/

LPC_I2C_TypeDef*  regs;
IRQn_Type         irqn;
uint32_t ignore_data_nack = 1;

void i2c0_init(uint32_t i2c_freq, uint8_t int_pri) {
    uint32_t pclk, fdiv;

    regs = LPC_I2C0;
    irqn = I2C0_IRQn;

    // setup initial state
    i2c0_busy = 0;
    buf = NULL;
    buf_len = 0;
    num_transferred = 0;

    // give power to the I2C hardware
    LPC_SC->PCONP |= (1 << 7);

    // set PIO0.27 and PIO0.28 to I2C0 SDA and SCK
    LPC_PINCON->PINSEL1 &= ~0x03C00000;
    LPC_PINCON->PINSEL1 |=  0x01400000;

    // set peripheral clock selection for I2C0
    LPC_SC->PCLKSEL0 &= ~(3 << 14); // clear bits
    LPC_SC->PCLKSEL0 |=  (1 << 14); // set to "01" (full speed)
    pclk = SystemCoreClock;

    // clear all flags
    regs->I2CONCLR = AA | SI | STO | STA | I2EN;

    // determine the frequency divider and set corresponding registers
    //  this makes a 50% duty cycle
    fdiv = pclk / i2c_freq;
    regs->I2SCLL = fdiv >> 1; // fdiv / 2
    regs->I2SCLH = fdiv - (fdiv >> 1); // compensate for odd dividers

    // install interrupt handler
    NVIC_EnableIRQ(irqn);

    // set the priority of the interrupt
    NVIC_SetPriority(irqn, int_pri); // '0' is highest

    // enable the I2C (master only)
    regs->I2CONSET = I2EN;
}

uint32_t i2c0_send(uint8_t address, uint8_t* buffer, uint32_t length) {
    // check software FSM
    if (i2c0_busy)
        return 0; // program should just die

    // set to status to 'busy'
    i2c0_busy = 1;

    // setup pointers
    slave_address = to_write_address(address);
    buf = buffer;
    buf_len = length;
    num_transferred = 0;

    // trigger a start condition
    regs->I2CONSET = STA;

    // wait for completion
    while (i2c0_busy);

    // get how many bytes were transferred
    return num_transferred;
}

uint32_t i2c0_recv(uint8_t address, uint8_t* buffer, uint32_t length) {
    // check software FSM
    if (i2c0_busy)
        return 0; // program should just die

    // set to status to 'busy'
    i2c0_busy = 1;

    // setup pointers
    slave_address = to_read_address(address);
    buf = buffer;
    buf_len = length;
    num_transferred = 0;

    // trigger a start condition
    regs->I2CONSET = STA;

    // wait for completion
    while (i2c0_busy);

    // get how many bytes were transferred
    return num_transferred;
}

void I2C0_IRQHandler(void) {
    // get reason for interrupt
    uint8_t status = regs->I2STAT;

    // ignore data nack when control is true
    if ((status == 0x30) && (ignore_data_nack))
            status = 0x28;

    // LPC17xx User Manual page 443:
    //   "...read and write to [I2DAT] only while ... the SI bit is set"
    //   "Data in I2DAT remains stable as long as the SI bit is set."


    /********************DEBUG**************************************/
    i2c_status_buf[i2c_status_pos] = status;
    i2c_status_pos++;
    if (i2c_status_pos > 99)
        i2c_status_pos = 0;
    /********************DEBUG**************************************/


    switch(status) {

    // Int: start condition has been transmitted
    // Do:  send SLA+R or SLA+W
    case 0x08:
        regs->I2DAT = slave_address; // formatted by send or receive
        regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
        break;

    // Int: repeated start condition has been transmitted
    // Do:  send SLA+R or SLA+W
    //case 0x10:
    //    regs->I2DAT = slave_address;
    //    regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
    //    break;

    // Int: SLA+W has been transmitted, ACK received
    // Do:  send first byte of buffer if available
    case 0x18:
        if (num_transferred < buf_len) {
            regs->I2DAT = buf[0];
            regs->I2CONCLR = STO | STA | SI;
        }
        else {
            regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
            regs->I2CONSET = STO;
        }
        break;

    // Int: SLA+W has been transmitted, NACK received
    // Do:  stop!
    case 0x20:
        regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
        regs->I2CONSET = STO;
        num_transferred = 0xFFFFFFFF;
        i2c0_busy = 0;
        break;

    // Int: data byte has been transmitted, ACK received
    // Do:  load next byte if available, else stop
    case 0x28:
        num_transferred++;
        if (num_transferred < buf_len) {
            regs->I2DAT = buf[num_transferred];
            regs->I2CONCLR = STO | STA | SI;
        }
        else {
            regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
            regs->I2CONSET = STO;
            i2c0_busy = 0;
        }
        break;

    // Int: data byte has been transmitted, NACK received
    // Do:  stop!
    case 0x30:
        regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
        regs->I2CONSET = STO;
        i2c0_busy = 0;
        break;

    // Int: arbitration lost in SLA+R/W or Data bytes
    // Do:  release bus
    case 0x38:
        regs->I2CONCLR = STO | STA | SI;
        i2c0_busy = 0;
        break;

    // Int: SLA+R has been transmitted, ACK received
    // Do:  determine if byte is to be received
    case 0x40:
        if (num_transferred < buf_len) {
            regs->I2CONCLR = STO | STA | SI;
            regs->I2CONSET = AA;
        }
        else {
            regs->I2CONCLR = AA | STO | STA | SI;
        }
        break;

    // Int: SLA+R has been transmitted, NACK received
    // Do:  stop!
    case 0x48:
        regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
        regs->I2CONSET = STO;
        num_transferred = 0xFFFFFFFF;
        i2c0_busy = 0;
        break;

    // Int: data byte has been received, ACK has been returned
    // Do:  read byte, determine if another byte is needed
    case 0x50:
        buf[num_transferred] = regs->I2DAT;
        num_transferred++;
        if (num_transferred < buf_len) {
            regs->I2CONCLR = STO | STA | SI;
            regs->I2CONSET = AA;
        }
        else {
            regs->I2CONCLR = AA | STO | STA | SI;
        }
        break;

    // Int: data byte has been received, NACK has been returned
    // Do:  transfer is done, stop.
    case 0x58:
        regs->I2CONCLR = STA | SI;
        regs->I2CONSET = STO;
        i2c0_busy = 0;
        break;

    // something went wrong, trap error
    default:
        while (1); // flash a LED or something :(
        break;

    }
}

static inline uint8_t to_read_address(uint8_t address) {
    return (address << 1) | 0x01;
}
static inline uint8_t to_write_address(uint8_t address) {
    return (address << 1);
}

As you can see, the implementation is fairly simple except for the interrupt handler. Fortunately, NXP is a great vendor when it comes to documentation. The user manual (found here) explains everything in detail. In fact, the state machine implemented in my driver’s interrupt handler is taken directly from the instructions in the manual. Each time an I2C event occurs, the I2C interrupter reports a status code. The user manual tells you exactly what to do for each status code. Using a large switch/case statement as I have done, leads to very short interrupt handling time.

I left some debugging code in there as I found it was extremely useful. The ‘i2c_buf’ and ‘i2c_pos’ functions allow me to retrieve information about the i2c transfer. The ‘i2c0_send’ and ‘i2c0_recv’ functions are mostly unconnected with the interrupts so there is no good way to figure what is going wrong when it does. Using a small buffer lets me see the order in which the interrupt status codes come. This allows me to determine what went wrong and why. This debug buffer isn’t flawless. I only used it to see one transaction length. I suggest removing it from the code once you verified that the driver works for you.

Conclusion

I hope that no one takes this code and uses it.  Instead, I’d hope that you’d take this code, verify it works in your system, then use it to start working on your own driver!  Making an I2C driver is a lot of fun and allows you to write code that heavily interacts with the hardware.  Making a finite state machine around the I2C status codes will really help you learn driver development. I2C is one of the more complicated protocols. UART, SPI, etc. are much easier and are a better starting point for a beginner. USB, Ethernet, CAN, etc. are more complicated than I2C. I2C presents a nice bridge between the extremely easy and the extremely hard.

2012
02/03
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Embedded Systems
TAGS






Write comment

Digital System Resets

Designing a reset architecture for a digital device such as an ASIC, FPGA, CPLD, etc. can be challenging.  Resets are a common culprit of metastability and unpredictable behavior.  Here I will discuss various reset architectures and how to properly use them.

Before you can begin to understand resets you must first understand flip-flops.  Flip-flops are the basic building block of all digital synchronous circuits.  Flip-flops are used to hold state between clock edges.  Flip-flops come in MANY varieties.  Flip-flops usually have between 0 and 2 signals that represent some sort of “reset”.  The 3 most common flip-flops are shown below (clock enables not shown):

Non-Resettable Flip-Flop:

Flip-flops don’t actually need any reset logic built-in.  External logic such as multiplexers can be used to emulate all the functionality of internal reset logic.  However, adding reset logic to the flip-flop directly greatly reduces the overall logic footprint.

Asynchronous Resettable Flip-Flop:

An asynchronous reset scheme enables a flip-flop to inherit a value when a specific signal is active.  The two asynchronous signal names are typically referred to as “preset” and “clear”.  Using positive logic, when the “preset” line is high, the output of the flip-flop is immediately forced high independent of the clock’s state and the input data.  Likewise, when the “clear” line is high, the output is forced low.

This waveform shows a simple asynchronous reset process.  On the first rising clock edge, the output ‘Q’ is set low because the input ‘D’ is low.  On the second rising clock edge, the output now goes high as a result of the input.  Between clock 2 and 3 the asynchronous clear signal goes high.  As soon as the signal reaches a full logic level 1, the output of the flip-flop is immediately forced low.

Synchronous Resettable Flip-Flop:

A synchronous reset scheme enables a flip-flop to inherit a value when a specific signal is active during an active clock edge.  The two synchronous signal names are typically referred to as “set” and “reset”.  Using positive logic and positive clock edges, when the “set” line is high during a positive clock edge, the flip-flop is forced high independent of the input data.  Likewise, when the “reset” line is high during a positive clock edge, the flip-flop is forced low.

This waveform shows a simple synchronous reset process.  On the first rising clock edge, the output ‘Q’ is set low because the input ‘D’ is low.  On the second rising clock edge, the output now goes high as a result of the input.  Between clock 2 and 3 the synchronous reset signal goes high.  This change does not effect the flip-flop output value until the third rising clock edge.  At this point the output is driven low even though the input signal is still high.

What Needs to be Reset?

A good reset design approach is “reset only what needs it”.  Things that need to be reset are flip-flops that must be put in a known state. Common examples are: finite state machine flip-flops; incrementing or decrementing counters; and control pipelines.

In general, data paths do not need to be reset.  Adding a reset to a large data path can cause excessive resource usage and routing delays.  Take care when deciding which flop-flops need to be reset.

Asynchronous/Synchronous Comparison:

Before deciding what reset architecture to use, let’s first define the advantages and disadvantages of the two styles.

Advantages of Asynchronous Resets:
  • Flip-flops immediately take the value of reset without dependence on a clock edge.
  • No signal synchronization needed for asynchronous input reset signals (like a push button reset).
Disadvantages of Asynchronous Resets:
  • Coming out of reset often causes metastability.
  • Chip-wide asynchronous resets cause modules to come out of reset at different times due to inconsistent delay paths.

Advantages of Synchronous Resets:

  • All modules come out of reset at the same time and timing assumptions can safely be made about module interfaces.
  • All clock/reset timing is taken care of by standard synthesis.
Disadvantages of Synchronous Resets:
  • Designs with large area will use excessive routing resources while trying to meet timing constraints.
  • Relies on the existence of a clock.  Signals won’t be reset until an active clock edge.

Note: this topic applies to all types of digital devices.  Each device type (FPGA, ASIC, etc.) will have optimal setups, but understanding your options will help you decide how to safely reset your device.

The Asynchronous Reset Problem:

For asynchronous resets, going into a reset state isn’t a problem.  When software tools are synthesizing, and placing components, asynchronous resets are a simple task because they are not related to a specific clock and have no timing constraints.

Asynchronous resets create a problem when the reset signal is being deactivated.  If the reset is released near an active clock edge the results of that clock cycle are unknown.  The following waveform shows this scenario:

At the start of the second clock cycle the clock rises and the clear signal falls.  What should the flip-flop be set to?  Will the input ‘D’ win the fight or will the clear signal?  The answer is that we don’t know.  Not knowing the state of a signal will certainly cause issues.  An even bigger problem is the violation of the setup and hold time requirements of the flip-flop.  Violating these requirements results in metastability.

Consider a state machine that has 3 states and is one-hot encoded with 001, 010, and 100.  Now consider the asynchronous deactivation problem.  What if bits 1 and 2 got reset but bit 3 did not?  The state could then be 101 and the circuit’s logic would consider the state machine to be in two states simultaneously.  Obviously this would kill the design.

Some designers attempt to overcome this problem by first synchronizing the reset to the appropriate clock domain then using it as a synchronous reset.  If this new synchronous reset is used globally, you’ve effectively converted your design to a synchronous reset architecture.  If the new reset signal is only used locally, you’ll create problems due to not knowing exactly when adjacent modules are in or out of reset.

The Synchronous Reset Problem:

Unlike asynchronous resets, synchronous resets must travel between flip-flops in one clock period.  During synthesis and place & route, the software tools will ensure that each reset signal will arrive at its destination before the active clock edge that it triggers on.  This may seem like a good thing because the designer now doesn’t need to worry about violating the setup and hold times of the flip-flops being reset.  This is true, but only on a small scale.

Synchronous resets, specifically global synchronous resets, create routing problems that lead to sub-optimal timing results.  Using a global synchronous reset effectively means that every block must see the same reset signal every clock cycle.  Routing one signal to all locations of a chip in one clock cycle requires a massive amount of routing resources or, depending on the clock speed and die size, is impossible.

Consider a large design with 3 major sub-designs.  Each sub-design must communicate with all other sub-designs so it is important to know that each block comes out of reset on the same clock cycle.  This is the main idea behind a global synchronous reset.

The small red block is a module that synchronizes the input reset to the clock in order to provide a synchronous reset to the rest of the chip.  Now consider the results if all 3 blocks directly use the reset as a synchronous reset.  All flip-flops using the reset signal will draw current from reset source.  For a large design, the fanout of this structure will cause most designs to fail static timing analysis.

Solution:

From our discussion thus far, it’s apparent that working with synchronous resets is easier because the software tools will provide proper timing.  The first thing we need to do is synchronize the asynchronous input reset to our clock domain.  The synchronizer below outputs a reset that activates asynchronously and deactivates synchronously.  Using this style of synchronizer gives us the advantages of asynchronous resets and the safety of synchronous resets.

Now that we have a good reset signal we need to spread it across the chip efficiently.  We will create ‘M’ parallel reset pipelines of ‘N’ flip-flops.  ‘M’ is is the number of major blocks the design contains.  ‘N’ is determined according to clock speed and die size.  It needs to be high enough such that each reset pipeline can meet timing while delivering the reset to the desired location.

This figure shows M=3 and N=6.  The 3 separate pipelines are of equal length so each of the 3 blocks will receive the reset at the same time.  The 6 pipeline stages allow the place & route tools to easily make it across the chip while still meeting timing.  The pipeline stages work just like the synchronizer in that they produce a asynchronous reset assertion and a synchronous reset deassertion.

After the HDL is in place to generate the circuits described above, synthesis and timing constraints must be used in order for this reset architecture to work.

  1. A synthesis directive must be placed on all flip-flops in the pipeline stages informing the synthesizer to keep all flip-flop instances.  By default, the synthesizer will see that the pipeline stages are parallel versions of each other and “optimize” them away.  For Synopsys constraints, the “syn_keep” directive will perform this task.
  2. In order to use the advantage of the asynchronously asserted reset, the reset must be used asynchronously in the HDL.  Because it is asynchronous, the synthesizer will assume no timing dependencies relative to the clock.  However, we must guarantee that the deassertion of the reset is synchronous.  A place & route constraint must be placed between all stages of the pipeline and between the last stage and its destination.  The constraint must ensure that the reset reaches its destination without violating the setup and hold times of the input flip-flops.  If the reset is used synchronously, this step can be skipped.

Other Links:

EETimes: How do I reset my FPGA?

2012
01/16
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Digital Design
TAGS









Write comment

I’m going to be rich!!!

In the fall of 2010, while completing my bachelor’s senior project, I accidentally designed a helicopter that flies without its rotors moving!  I’m going to make billions!

2011
09/19
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Toys
TAGS


Write comment

Using HDL the Right Way

For digital design, the fastest way to design a circuit is using a hardware description language (HDL).  All HDLs have one common flaw, they have constructs and syntax that do NOT describe hardware.  This causes fundamental issues for engineers designing ASICs, FPGAs, CPLDs, etc.

To overcome the fundamental problem with HDLs, I propose a few simple steps to allow designers to write code that translates to optimally synthesized logic.  The steps are:

1.  Use an HDL to describe the hardware.

The key word in “hardware description language” is description.  HDLs should be used to describe a digital circuit.  Unfortunately engineers often use an HDL to create a circuit that were it not for the synthesizer they would have no idea how to design it.  This almost always results in a sub-optimal design.  If you don’t know how to make a circuit, why should the synthesizer?

Before writing any HDL code, you should sit down and either make a diagram or have a good mental view of the circuit you are trying to design.  Once you have this, you can use the HDL to syntactically describe the circuit.

2.  Use only HDL syntax that can directly synthesize to logic.

As mentioned earlier, HDLs contain syntax that doesn’t describe digital hardware.  Do not use these constructs.  Only use blatant hardware-based assignments and operators.  This will allow your synthesized design to follow closely to what is found in the HDL code.

Books like “The Designer’s Guide to VHDL” actually do the designer a disservice.  99% of this book talks about unsynthesizable code while the last 1% is useful synthesizable code.  Digital logic is very easy.  It doesn’t require many types of syntax.  Our digital design world would flow much better if HDLs were only designed to describe hardware.  The unfortunate fact that many HDLs have testbench-like syntax causes less-knowledgable designers to use these constructs out of ignorance.  This will undoubtedly burn them at some point in their career.

3.  Use a netlist viewer.

After designing a digital circuit using an HDL, synthesize it and use an RTL netlist viewer to verify that the synthesized design contains the proper logic.  This is critical!  Often times the synthesizer will not properly infer logic blocks.  Using a netlist viewer will allow you to double-check the synthesized results.  This will also help you find bugs in your code that may not have been syntax bugs.  Usually when a bug makes it through the synthesis stage, the result will be quite different from what you expected.  Using an RTL netlist viewer creates one more process step, but it will reduce your development time because you’ll find and correct problems in earlier stages.

For you FPGA and CPLD designers, using a technology netlist viewer will give you yet another verification step.  This is very useful when you are using an HDL to describe some device primitive such as block RAMs, clock muxes, tristate drivers, dual-data registers, digital signal processing (DSP) blocks, and many more.

4.  Do not use your hardware HDL for your testbench HDL.

This is a commonly debated topic.  I don’t think you absolutely have to follow my advice to produce good hardware, but I definitely think it makes it easier.  I believe that there is a fundamental problem with HDLs in that they attempt to satisfy the syntactical needs of hardware and testbenches.  This would be better off split into two languages.  Using the same language causes issues because if you made a logic mistake in your hardware, what makes you think you wouldn’t make the same or inverse mistake in your testbench?

For myself I have adopted a pretty simple strategy.  I write all my hardware code in VHDL or Verilog.  I only use basic hardware-like constructs and avoid any use of complex functions that have no simple hardware explanation.  For testing, I use SystemVerilog.  SystemVerilog provides a very cool interface between hardware and computer-language-like programmability.  The typical problem with creating testbenches is that you feel like you are creating another hardware suite.  Using SystemVerilog I create drivers which send and receive object-oriented data structures to and from my top-level hardware design.  These drivers have a hardware side that is attached to my hardware design.  They also have a programmable side which is attached to my testing logic.

Here is an example.  If my hardware design was an IP packet router, I would create a SystemVerilog class that represents an IP packet.  I can use computer-language-like programming to create and monitor the status of these packets.  From this programmable side, I send all the created packets to the driver.  The driver takes the data and communicates with my hardware unit over the physical protocol defined by the hardware.  I would also have a driver for receiving packets.  After all is said and done, I can use typical C++ like programming to verify proper IP routing of my hardware device.  Simple, right?

Examples of what NOT to do:

Example #1:

It is common in communication systems to send a known pattern of bits at the beginning of each frame so that the receiving side can synchronize itself to the bit stream. For communication systems, you often need to be tolerant of a few bits errors.  To search for the sync bits, you just need to XOR the last received bits with the known sync pattern then count the number of ones, which is the number of errors.  For counting the post-XOR ones, I often see a VHDL function declared like this:

function count_ones (a : std_logic_vector) return unsigned is
  variable b : unsigned(log(a'length) downto 0) := (others => '0');
begin
  for i in a'range loop
    if (a(i) = '1') then
      b := b + 1;
    end if;
  end loop;
  return b;
end;

This may look harmless, but try to think of what kind of hardware it will make. All the synthesizers I’ve tried this on make an a’length series sequence of b’length adders.  Obviously this produces absolutely horrible timing results.  There are better ways to count ones.  Don’t get stuck with a sequences of adders.

Example #2:

Back when I was a digital design rookie, I was trying to figure out how to take a binary number and produce a sequence of BCD values.  For example 10100010(162) would convert to 0001(1), 0110(6), 0010(2).  I found a commonly known algorithm for this.  The 8-bit algorithm is:

1.  If any column (100′s, 10′s, 1′s, etc.) is 5 or greater, add 3 to that column.
2.  Shift all #’s to the left 1 position.
3.  If 8 shifts have been performed, it’s done! Evaluate each column for the BCD values.
4.  Go to step 1.

I then attempted to translate this into hardware.  I wanted a completely combinational implementation for single clock latency.  This is what I naively produced:

module bcd (
    input [7:0] binary,
    output reg [3:0] hundreds,
    output reg [3:0] tens,
    output reg [3:0] ones);

    integer i;
    always @(binary) begin
        // set 100's, 10's, and 1's to zero
        hundreds = 4'd0;
        tens = 4'd0;
        ones = 4'd0;

        // loop 8 times
        for (i=7; i>=0; i=i-1) begin
            // add 3 to columns >= 5
            if (hundreds >= 5)
                hundreds = hundreds + 3;
            if (tens >= 5)
                tens = tens + 3;
            if (ones >= 5)
                ones = ones + 3;

            // shift left one
            hundreds = hundreds << 1;
            hundreds[0] = tens[3];
            tens = tens << 1;
            tens[0] = ones[3];
            ones = ones << 1;
            ones[0] = binary[i];
        end
    end
endmodule

Yes, I know, there numerous issues in this code. Can anyone look at this code and figure out what it will make?  I can’t!  Even though this code properly produces the BCD sequence, it produces a very large combinational path.  Don’t use it!

2011
09/15
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Digital Design
TAGS










Write comment

Multiplex EasyStar Airplane

Setup:

In anticipation of developing a quadcopter, I bought a Spektrum Dx5e/AR500 transmitter/receiver pair.  Knowing that the quadcopter would probably take many months to design and build, my wife lovingly thought to buy me an RC Airplane to hold me over until I finished my quadcopter.  She snooped on my computer and found that I had been looking at the Multiplex EasyStar.

The version I got (linked below) didn’t come with an Tx/Rx, servos, ESC, or battery.  I jumped on HobbyKing.com and bought two servos, a 2-cell lipo battery, and a cheap brushed ESC.  It turned out that the servos I bought were a low-voltage version and very weak.  Because I didn’t want to wait for another shipment from China, I ordered some better servos from HorizonHobby.com.

My final parts list became:

Total: $216

First Flight:

My first flight went horribly!  I was too anxious to fly and didn’t wait for a good day.  Let’s just say I flew around for a few minutes with completely no control and then ended my performance with a full throttle nose dive into the ground.  The cockpit area of the fuselage broke in half.  To those of you reading this deciding whether to get into RC planes or not, don’t let this discourage you.  I did EVERYTHING wrong.  Not only was I too anxious, but I was also nervous.  I left the throttle at full.  This was a bad combination.

I fixed the fuselage using the same glue I put it together with and some clear box tape.  It actually seemed to get even stronger!  I waited for a calm day then attempted flight number two.  I remembered to stay clam, set the throttle to full, hand launched, got control, then set the throttle to about half.  I couldn’t believe how easy it was to fly!  I was flying around with perfect control in no time.  I even got brave and applied full throttle and pulled off a loop.  It was ridiculously fun!  Then I realized I needed to land sometime soon or it would land by itself (another nose dive into the ground?).  Once I got close to the ground, I cut the throttle to about 1/4 power then slowly descended in a straight line.  It smoothly slid across the grass until it stopped!

Aggressive Flight Modification:

After a few flights, I determined that the aircraft was a bit sluggish when looping and turning.  I decided to do a few things to fix this:

  • Servo Cable Adjustment:
    Each servo cable attaches to the corresponding flap using a threaded clamp that sits in one of three slots.  When I first put the airplane together, I put the clamp in the least aggressive slot (furthest from the flap).  I just moved all the clamps to the most aggressive location (closest to the flaps).  This increased the aggressiveness of the aircraft dramatically.
  • Rudder Enhancement:
    Unlike a typical RC airplane, the rudder on the EasyStar controls the tail and the roll of the aircraft.  Its design is far too small for its purpose.  I used some thin, stiff cardboard and super glue to extend the length of the rudder.  The stock length is about 1″.  I modified it to be about 6″.  This turned out to be too much rudder when the aircraft was moving quickly.  I cut the extended flap down to about 3.5″.  It now works great.  The plane now responds very fast but I also don’t get out of control when I am moving quickly through a turn.

Durability:

This airplane is super durable.  I have crashed in one way or another numerous times!  Most of the time nothing happens.  I’m pretty sure my fuselage is now 40% glue, 45% tape, and 5% foam.  It still flys like a champ!  The location of the propeller is perfect for beginners.  It has never been harmed in all my crashes.

Too Aggressive?:

Apparently my modification makes the aircraft more aggressive than the foam wings can handle.  To get enough speed for the many tricks I’ve learned, I take the EasyStar up as high as I can while still feeling comfortable, then dive nose down.  Sometimes I just do this to see how fast I can get going and how close I can get to the ground until I pull up.  Each time I do this I can see the wings flexing back.  One day my dives were getting really fast and one of the wings finally gave out.  The wing snapped in half and the rest of the plane went spinning into the ground.  I could probably beef up the wing strength with some carbon fiber rods, however, $25 for new wings isn’t too much to ask for 6 months of abuse.

2011
09/09
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Toys
TAGS









Write comment

Verilog vs. VHDL

When it comes to Hardware Description Languages (HDLs), the two giants in industry are Verilog and VHDL.  These two languages are vastly different and both provide ample advantages and disadvantages.  Here I’ll show what I think are the pros and cons to these languages.  Since I am a hardware design engineer, I’ll only speak to the synthesizable aspects to the two languages.

My Verilog History:
While plugging away at a Computer Engineering degree at the University of Utah, I was introduced to Verilog for digital circuit design.  At first, I struggled to comprehend Verilog.  I was proficient with C, C++, and Java, so the syntax was familiar but seemed to have odd differences that bothered me.  Once I got the hang of it, Verilog became very powerful in my hands.  I grasped a hold of digital design and completed numerous projects in the FPGA world.  The crux of my Verilog experience was a hand crafted 32-bit RISC processor design.  Through all these experiences I learned to ignore the annoyances of Verilog and hack around them.

Verilog Likes:
To a C, C++, C#, or Java programmer, Verilog syntax will make you feel right at home.  The constructs, operators, and numerical logic follows very closely with C.

Verilog Dislikes:
Verilog was syntactically designed after C.  C is a great software language, however, as one of my professors once said “C is a loaded gun aimed at your foot!”.  The lack of type enforcement is what makes C super fast and super scary.  Without dealing with type checking, compiled C code is very efficient.  For most developers, this also causes buggy code.  Fortunately, software is easy to debug.  Like C, Verilog has weak type enforcement.  Along the same lines, Verilog also doesn’t enforce equal sized bit widths for assignments, operations, and comparisons.  Unlike software, hardware isn’t faster when type checking is ignored.  I can’t tell you how many times a lack of type checking and/or width checking has burned me while designing hardware in Verilog!

My VHDL History:
After graduation I found employment with L-3 Communications in the Advanced Networking Hardware design group.  Due to legacy government contracts, L-3 has adopted VHDL as the HDL of choice.  Although I landed an absolutely awesome job, the thought of designing logic in a language that was derived from ADA gave me a sour taste.  As I begun a few projects, VHDL really annoyed me.  It seemed like I was typing the same thing over and over and over.  I realized that 100 lines of good Verilog translates to 300 lines of good VHDL.  As time went on I discovered the true power of VHDL.

VHDL Likes:
VHDL is inherently safe.  It basically has no primitive data types.  All data types are tied to some library which defines all operations.  Users can create their own data types and operators.  For synthesizable hardware this isn’t super useful however every state machine is best designed using a custom type.  Each time an operator is used, the corresponding function is called.  No automatic conversions are ever made.  You can’t accidentally get something you weren’t expecting.  VHDL is meticulously safe!  Along with being safe, the verbosity adds a level of confidence that what you are coding is what you’d expect.  For instance, the clock and reset structure for a ‘process’ is much better designed than ‘always’ blocks in Verilog.

VHDL Dislikes:
There are many little nuisances  in VHDL.  VHDL-2008 solves many of these nuisances but industry leading tools are not yet supporting the full VHDL-2008 standard.  Even though VHDL in inherently safe, older libraries and bad coding styles can still cause unwanted synthesis results.  VHDL considers all signals to be the same whether registered or not.  I like how Verilog has ‘reg’ and ‘wire’.  VHDL doesn’t have something like this.  I like to know just by seeing the declaration if it is a register or not.

The Winner Is…
After developing in both languages quite thoroughly, I choose VHDL as the best language for synthesizable logic.  The biggest reasoning for this is the safety aspect.  When is comes to hardware, it needs to have a blatant underlying implementation.  All arithmetic and comparisons should have obvious results.

Suggested Coding Standards:
There are several coding standards I live by to make VHDL a powerful language.  Before you criticize the guidelines, thoroughly think of the benefits they provide.  The rules are  here.

2011
09/07
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Digital Design
TAGS







Write comment

Extreme Pinewood Derby

A local group of guys decided to have a pinewood derby with no rules. The only stipulation was that we couldn’t cause harm to the track or spectators. We decided that this implied no combustibles. I knew the best way to win this would be some kind of CO2 powered vehicle. The bad news is that I was running out of time and didn’t know enough about CO2 valves to whip something up.

I decided to use the propeller, motor, and electronic speed controller from my Multiplex EasyStar RC Airplane. I also knew that only an autonomous vehicle would impress the crowd.

The track we were racing on held each car with a wooden rowel. The dowels dropped simultaneously to start the race. To make the car autonomous, I used a lever switch and the weight of the car to trigger an event to start the car.

The main controller of the car is an Arduino (yes, I know, I’m going against my own preaching). The Arduino held a simple state machine to control the motor. For safety reasons, I designed the state machine to only start the motor after the system had been intentionally armed.

2011
07/12
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Toys
TAGS



1 comment

Assertions in Microcontrollers

Introduction to Assertions:

Assertions are a simply way of testing your programming logic.  The basic idea behind assertions is testing a piece of code that you assume will always work as designed.  As programmers, we inheritantly do this all the time while writing code.  We find ourselves writing small print statements to check that what we just coded produced the right output.  Assertions are a formal way of doing this.  The typical assertion header file looks like this:

#ifndef _ASSERT_H_
#define _ASSERT_H_

#if ENABLE_ASSERTIONS==1
void assertion_failure(char* expr, char* file, char* baseFile, int line);
#define assert(expr) \
    if (expr) ; \
    else assertion_failure(#expr,__FILE__,__BASE_FILE__,__LINE__)
#else
#define assert(expr) /*nothing here*/
#endif

#endif // _ASSERT_H_

And a programmer would use it like this:

#define ENABLE_INSERTIONS 1
#include "assert.h"
double nasa_rocket() {
    int i;

    // thrust value for the four engines
    double thrust_vals[4];

    // average thrust percentage
    double thrust_percentage;

    // get thrust from all rocket engines
    for (i=0; i<4; i++)
        thrust_vals[i] = getMotorThrust(i);

    // call function to compute average thrust percentage
    thrust_percentage = computeAverageThrustPercentage(thrust_vals);

    // double check programming logic
    assert(thrust_percentage >= 0.0);
    assert(thrust_percentage <= 100.0);

    return thrust_percentage;
}

As shown in the first code snippet, when an assertion fails, it calls ‘assert_failure()’ and passes information about the tested expression, file names, and line number.  This function usually uses ‘fprintf()’ to write this information to the error console.  After printing the information, the ‘assertion_failure()’ function either calls a system halt function, kills the program, or puts itself into an infinite loop.

The NASA software engineer could verify here that the returned ‘thrust_percentage’ would not be out of the standard bounds of percentages (0% to 100%).  This would not be a check you’d want to do in code because it should always work and extra checks will just slow it down.  However, you do want to make sure it works before sending your billion dollar rocket into space.  After the engineer has verified that the code works, he can simply disable assertions using the ‘ENABLE_ASSERTIONS’ define statement.  Doing this causes the C preprocessor to produce blank lines for all calls to ‘assert()’.  After all, it’s better to use invalid numbers than to cause an infinite loop inside an ‘assertion_failure()’ function!

How to assert in a microcontroller:

The first program you write for a microcontroller is much different than the first program you write for a personal computer.  You don’t have any libraries or operating system to support the standard “Hello World!” program.  Usually your first program is making an LED flash.  GPIO is the easiest thing to implement in a microcontroller.  Setting up a console for a microcontroller is a big process.  What happens if you wish to use assertions to test the console driver your are creating?  How can you assert without a console to print to?  There are many answers to this.  This post attempts to give the most robust implementation for microcontrollers.

First thing is first, you need a working LED that you can set aside for assertion failures.  That’s it!  Using some simple code, you can be notified (by the LED) of a failure and check where it came from using the debugger.

Here is my implementation for assertions:

#ifndef _ASSERTS_H_
#define _ASSERTS_H_

void assert_init(void (*assert_indicator)(void));
#if ENABLE_ASSERTIONS==1
void assertion_failure(char* expr, char* file, char* basefile, int linenum)
#define assert(expr) \
    if (expr) ; \
    else assertion_failure(#expr,__FILE__,__BASE_FILE__,__LINE__))
#else
#define assert(expr) /*nothing*/
#endif // ENABLE_ASSERTIONS==1

#endif // _ASSERTS_H_

 

#define ENABLE_ASSERTIONS 1
#include "asserts.h"

// function pointer to assertion indicator
static void (*assert_ind)(void) = NULL;

// sets user's choice of failure indicator function
void assert_init(void (*assert_indicator)(void)) {
    assert_ind = assert_indicator;
}

// failure function called by macro.
#if ENABLE_ASSERTIONS==1
void assertion_failure(char* expr, char* file, char* basefile, int linenum) {
    // debugger can look at these
    volatile const char* v_expr;
    volatile const char* v_file;
    volatile const char* v_basefile;
    volatile int v_linenum;

    // assign variables to volatiles
    v_expr     = expr;
    v_file     = file;
    v_basefile = basefile;
    v_linenum  = linenum;

    // call function that indicates an assertion failure
    assert_ind();

    // halt
    while (1);
}
#endif

As shown, my implementation has an extra function for initialization. The user simply passes a function pointer to the ‘assert_init()’ function that corresponds to the function that would indicate to the user of an assertion failure.  The simplest solution is a function that turns on an LED designated for assertion failure indication.

The ‘assertion_failure()’ implementation simply copies the input values to local volatile versions.  It then calls the user’s function (which illuminates the LED) then puts itself into a infinite loop.

When the user sees the LED illuminate, he knows an assertion has failed.  Using the debugger, he can then pause the program (which is still in the ‘assertion_failure()’ function) and inspect the variables which indicate the failing expression, file location of the failing expression, and line number within the file of the failing expression.  Using this information, he can then fix the mistake(s).

2011
07/05
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Embedded Systems
TAGS


Write comment

Topic Requests

If you've seen something you like and want to know more, or if you have an idea for something I should post about, go to my requests page and leave a comment.
wordpress stats
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.