One of the 8051s many powerful
features is its integrated UART, otherwise known as a
serial port. The fact that the 8051 has an integrated serial
port means that you may very easily read and write values to the
serial port. If it were not for the integrated serial port,
writing a byte to a serial line would be a rather tedious
process requring turning on and off one of the I/O lines in
rapid succession to properly "clock out" each individual bit,
including start bits, stop bits, and parity bits.
However, we do not have to do this. Instead, we
simply need to configure the serial ports operation mode and
baud rate. Once configured, all we have to do is write to an SFR
to write a value to the serial port or read the same SFR to read
a value from the serial port. The 8051 will automatically let us
know when it has finished sending the character we wrote and
will also let us know whenever it has received a byte so that we
can process it. We do not have to worry about transmission at
the bit level--which saves us quite a bit of coding and
processing time.
The first thing we must do when using the 8051s
integrated serial port is, obviously, configure it. This lets us
tell the 8051 how many data bits we want, the baud rate we will
be using, and how the baud rate will be determined.
First, lets present the "Serial Control" (SCON)
SFR and define what each bit of the SFR represents:
Receiver Enable. This bit must be set in
order to receive characters.
3
TB8
9Bh
Transmit bit 8. The 9th bit to transmit in
mode 2 and 3.
2
RB8
9Ah
Receive bit 8. The 9th bit received in mode
2 and 3.
1
TI
99h
Transmit Flag. Set when a byte has been
completely transmitted.
0
RI
98h
Receive Flag. Set when a byte has been
completely received.
Additionally, it is necessary to define the
function of SM0 and SM1 by an additional table:
SM0
SM1
Serial Mode
Explanation
Baud Rate
0
0
0
8-bit Shift Register
Oscillator / 12
0
1
1
8-bit UART
Set by Timer 1 (*)
1
0
2
9-bit UART
Oscillator / 32 (*)
1
1
3
9-bit UART
Set by Timer 1 (*)
(*) Note: The baud rate indicated in this table
is doubled if PCON.7 (SMOD) is set.
The SCON SFR allows us to configure the Serial
Port. Thus, well go through each bit and review its function.
The first four bits (bits 4 through 7) are
configuration bits.
Bits SM0 and SM1 let us set the
serial mode to a value between 0 and 3, inclusive. The four
modes are defined in the chart immediately above. As you can
see, selecting the Serial Mode selects the mode of operation
(8-bit/9-bit, UART or Shift Register) and also determines how
the baud rate will be calculated. In modes 0 and 2 the baud rate
is fixed based on the oscillators frequency. In modes 1 and 3
the baud rate is variable based on how often Timer 1 overflows.
Well talk more about the various Serial Modes in a moment.
The next bit, SM2, is a flag for
"Multiprocessor communication." Generally, whenever a byte has
been received the 8051 will set the "RI" (Receive Interrupt)
flag. This lets the program know that a byte has been received
and that it needs to be processed. However, when SM2 is set the
"RI" flag will only be triggered if the 9th bit received was a
"1". That is to say, if SM2 is set and a byte is received whose
9th bit is clear, the RI flag will never be set. This can be
useful in certain advanced serial applications. For now it is
safe to say that you will almost always want to clear this bit
so that the flag is set upon reception of any character.
The next bit, REN, is "Receiver Enable."
This bit is very straightforward: If you want to receive data
via the serial port, set this bit. You will almost always want
to set this bit.
The last four bits (bits 0 through 3) are
operational bits. They are used when actually sending and
receiving data--they are not used to configure the serial port.
The TB8 bit is used in modes 2 and 3. In
modes 2 and 3, a total of nine data bits are transmitted. The
first 8 data bits are the 8 bits of the main value, and the
ninth bit is taken from TB8. If TB8 is set and a value is
written to the serial port, the datas bits will be written to
the serial line followed by a "set" ninth bit. If TB8 is clear
the ninth bit will be "clear."
The RB8 also operates in modes 2 and 3
and functions essentially the same way as TB8, but on the
reception side. When a byte is received in modes 2 or 3, a total
of nine bits are received. In this case, the first eight bits
received are the data of the serial byte received and the value
of the ninth bit received will be placed in RB8.
TI means "Transmit Interrupt." When a
program writes a value to the serial port, a certain amount of
time will pass before the individual bits of the byte are
"clocked out" the serial port. If the program were to write
another byte to the serial port before the first byte was
completely output, the data being sent would be garbled. Thus,
the 8051 lets the program know that it has "clocked out" the
last byte by setting the TI bit. When the TI bit is set, the
program may assume that the serial port is "free" and ready to
send the next byte.
Finally, the RI bit means "Receive
Interrupt." It funcions similarly to the "TI" bit, but it
indicates that a byte has been received. That is to say,
whenever the 8051 has received a complete byte it will trigger
the RI bit to let the program know that it needs to read the
value quickly, before another byte is read.
Once the Serial Port Mode has been configured,
as explained above, the program must configure the serial ports
baud rate. This only applies to Serial Port modes 1 and 3. The
Baud Rate is determined based on the oscillators frequency when
in mode 0 and 2. In mode 0, the baud rate is always the
oscillator frequency divided by 12. This means if youre crystal
is 11.059Mhz, mode 0 baud rate will always be 921,583 baud. In
mode 2 the baud rate is always the oscillator frequency divided
by 64, so a 11.059Mhz crystal speed will yield a baud rate of
172,797.
In modes 1 and 3, the baud rate is determined by
how frequently timer 1 overflows. The more frequently timer 1
overflows, the higher the baud rate. There are many ways one can
cause timer 1 to overflow at a rate that determines a baud rate,
but the most common method is to put timer 1 in 8-bit
auto-reload mode (timer mode 2) and set a reload value (TH1)
that causes Timer 1 to overflow at a frequency appropriate to
generate a baud rate.
To determine the value that must be placed in
TH1 to generate a given baud rate, we may use the following
equation (assuming PCON.7 is clear).
TH1 = 256 - ((Crystal / 384) / Baud)
If PCON.7 is set then the baud rate is
effectively doubled, thus the equation becomes:
TH1 = 256 - ((Crystal / 192) / Baud)
For example, if we have an 11.059Mhz crystal and
we want to configure the serial port to 19,200 baud we try
plugging it in the first equation:
As you can see, to obtain 19,200 baud on a
11.059Mhz crystal wed have to set TH1 to 254.5. If we set it to
254 we will have achieved 14,400 baud and if we set it to 255 we
will have achieved 28,800 baud. Thus were stuck...
But not quite... to achieve 19,200 baud we
simply need to set PCON.7 (SMOD). When we do this we double the
baud rate and utilize the second equation mentioned above. Thus
we have:
Here we are able to calculate a nice, even TH1
value. Therefore, to obtain 19,200 baud with an 11.059MHz
crystal we must:
1. Configure Serial Port mode 1 or 3.
2. Configure Timer 1 to timer mode 2 (8-bit auto-reload).
3. Set TH1 to 253 to reflect the correct frequency for 19,200
baud.
4. Set PCON.7 (SMOD) to double the baud rate.
Once the Serial Port has been propertly
configured as explained above, the serial port is ready to be
used to send data and receive data. If you thought that
configuring the serial port was simple, using the serial port
will be a breeze.
To write a byte to the serial port one must
simply write the value to the SBUF (99h) SFR. For
example, if you wanted to send the letter "A" to the serial
port, it could be accomplished as easily as:
MOV SBUF,#A
Upon execution of the above instruction the 8051
will begin transmitting the character via the serial port.
Obviously transmission is not instantaneous--it takes a
measureable amount of time to transmit. And since the 8051 does
not have a serial output buffer we need to be sure that a
character is completely transmitted before we try to transmit
the next character.
The 8051 lets us know when it is done
transmitting a character by setting the TI bit in SCON.
When this bit is set we know that the last character has been
transmitted and that we may send the next character, if any.
Consider the following code segment:
CLR TI ;Be sure the bit is initially
clear MOV SBUF,#A ;Send the letter A to the serial port JNB TI,$ ;Pause until the TI bit is set.
The above three instructions will successfully
transmit a character and wait for the TI bit to be set before
continuing. The last instruction says "Jump if the TI bit is not
set to $"--$, in most assemblers, means "the same address of the
current instruction." Thus the 8051 will pause on the JNB
instruction until the TI bit is set by the 8051 upon successful
transmission of the character.
Reading data received by the serial port is
equally easy. To read a byte from the serial port one just needs
to read the value stored in the SBUF (99h) SFR after the
8051 has automatically set the RI flag in SCON.
For example, if your program wants to wait for a
character to be received and subsequently read it into the
Accumulator, the following code segment may be used:
JNB RI,$ ;Wait for the 8051 to set the
RI flag MOV A,SBUF ;Read the character from the serial port
The first line of the above code segment waits
for the 8051 to set the RI flag; again, the 8051 sets the RI
flag automatically when it receives a character via the serial
port. So as long as the bit is not set the program repeats the "JNB"
instruction continuously.
Once the RI bit is set upon character reception
the above condition automatically fails and program flow falls
through to the "MOV" instruction which reads the value.
