The serial peripheral interface (SPI) is a high-speed synchronous serial input and output (I/O) port that allows a serial bit stream of programmed length (1 to 16 bits) to be shifted into and out of the device at a programmed bit-transfer rate. The SPI is normally used for communications between the MCU controller and external peripherals or another controller. Typical applications include external I/O or peripheral expansion through devices such as shift registers, display drivers, and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Multidevice communications are supported by the master or slave operation of the SPI. The port supports a 16-level, receive and transmit FIFO for reducing CPU servicing overhead.
The SPI module features include:
- SPISOMI: SPI slave-output/master-input pin
- SPISIMO: SPI slave-input/master-output pin
- SPISTE: SPI slave transmit-enable pin
- SPICLK: SPI serial-clock pin
Note: All four pins can be used as GPIO, if the SPI module is not used.
- Two operational modes: Master and Slave
- Baud rate: 125 different programmable rates. The maximum baud rate that can be employed is limited by the maximum speed of the I/O buffers used on the SPI pins.
- Data word length: 1 to 16 data bits
- Four clocking schemes (controlled by clock polarity and clock phase bits) include:
- Falling edge without phase delay: SPICLK active-high. SPI transmits data on the falling edge of the SPICLK signal and receives data on the rising edge of the SPICLK signal.
- Falling edge with phase delay: SPICLK active-high. SPI transmits data one half-cycle ahead of the falling edge of the SPICLK signal and receives data on the falling edge of the SPICLK signal.
- Rising edge without phase delay: SPICLK inactive-low. SPI transmits data on the rising edge of the SPICLK signal and receives data on the falling edge of the SPICLK signal.
- Rising edge with phase delay: SPICLK inactive-low. SPI transmits data one half-cycle ahead of the rising edge of the SPICLK signal and receives data on the rising edge of the SPICLK signal.
- Simultaneous receive and transmit operation (transmit function can be disabled in software)
- Transmitter and receiver operations are accomplished through either interrupt-driven or polled algorithm
- 16-level transmit/receive FIFO
- DMA support
- High-speed mode
- Delayed transmit control
- 3-wire SPI mode
- SPISTE inversion for digital audio interface receive mode on devices with two SPI modules
Figure 7-83 shows the SPI CPU interfaces.