S V ENGINEERING COLLEGE

KARAKAMBADI ROAD, TIRUPATI-517507

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING

LECTURE NOTES

15A04702 – Embedded Systems

Regulation – R15

Academic Year (2020 – 21)

Year / Semester : IV / I

Prepared by

Dr.C.Raju ,Associate Professor

C.Rajani,Assistant Professor

M.Harshavardhan, Assistant Professor

 CONTENTS
1 Unit-I : Introduction to Embedded Systems Page NO
1.1 Introduction 5
1.2 Unit-I notes 6
1.3 Part A Questions 19
1.4 Part B Questions 21
2 Unit-II : Embedded processor architecture
2.1 Introduction 24
2.2 Unit-II notes 24
2.3 Part A Questions 55
2.4 Part B Questions 58
3 Unit-III : Overview of Microcontroller and Embedded
Systems
3.1 Introduction 61
3.2 Unit-III notes 61
3.3 Part A Questions 70
3.4 Part B Questions 71
4 Unit-IV: Microcontroller fundamentals for basic
programming
4.1 Introduction 74
4.2 Unit-IV notes 74
4.3 Part A Questions 95
4.4 Part B Questions 97
5 Unit-V: Embedded communications protocols and Internet
of things
5.1 Introduction 100
5.2 Unit-V notes 100
5.3 Part A Questions 165
5.4 Part B Questions 168
 JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY ANANTAPUR
L T 3 1 0 3

B.Tech IV-ISem. (ECE)

15A04702 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Course Objectives:
 To understand the fundamental concepts of Embedded systems.
 To learn the kernel of RTOS, architecture of ARM processor.
Course Outcomes:
After completion the students will be able to

 Design of embedded systems leading to 32-bit application development.

 Understand hardware-interfacing concepts to connect digital as well as analog sensors
while ensuring low power considerations.
 Review and implement the protocols used by microcontroller to communicate with
external sensors and actuators in real world.
 Understand Embedded Networking and IoT concepts based upon connected MCUs
UNIT-I
Introduction to Embedded Systems Embedded system introduction, host and target concept,
embedded applications, features and architecture considerations for embedded systems- ROM,
RAM, timers; data and address bus concept, Embedded Processor and their types, Memory
types, overview of design process of embedded systems, programming languages and tools for
embedded design
UNIT-II
Embedded processor architecture

CISC Vs RISC design philosophy, Von-Neumann Vs Harvard architecture. Introduction to

ARM architecture and Cortex – M series, Introduction to the TM4C family viz. TM4C123x &
TM4C129x and its targeted applications. TM4C block diagram, address space, on-chip
peripherals (analog and digital) Register sets, Addressing modes and instruction set basics .
UNIT- III
Overview of Microcontroller and Embedded Systems

Embedded hardware and various building blocks, Processor Selection for an Embedded
System , Interfacing Processor, Memories and I/O Devices, I/O Devices and I/O interfacing
concepts, Timer and Counting Devices, Serial Communication and Advanced I/O, Buses
between the Networked Multiple Devices.Embedded System Design and Co-design Issues in
System Development Process, Design Cycle in the Development Phase for an Embedded
System, Uses of Target System or its Emulator and In-Circuit Emulator (ICE), Use of
Software Tools for Development of an Embedded System Design metrics of embedded
systems - low power, high performance, engineering cost, time-to-market.
UNIT-IV
Microcontroller fundamentals for basic programming
I/O pin multiplexing, pull up/down registers, GPIO control, Memory Mapped Peripherals,

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programming System registers, Watchdog Timer, need of low power for embedded systems,
System Clocks and control, Hibernation Module on TM4C, Active vs Standby current
consumption. Introduction to Interrupts, Interrupt vector table, interrupt programming. Basic
Timer, Real Time Clock (RTC), Motion Control Peripherals: PWM Module & Quadrature
Encoder Interface (QEI).
Unit-V
Embedded communications protocols and Internet of things
Synchronous/Asynchronous interfaces (like UART, SPI,I2C,USB), serial communication
basics, baud rate concepts, Interfacing digital and analog external device, Implementing and
programming UART, SPI and I2C, SPI interface using TM4C.Case Study: Tiva based
embedded system application using the interface protocols for communication with external
devices “Sensor Hub BoosterPack” Embedded Networking fundamentals, IoT overview and
architecture, Overview of wireless sensor networks and design examples. Adding Wi-Fi
capability to the Microcontroller, Embedded Wi-Fi, User APIs for Wireless and Networking
applications Building IoT applications using CC3100 user API.Case Study: Tiva based
Embedded Networking Application: “Smart Plug with Remote Disconnect and Wi-Fi
Connectivity”
Text Books :
1. Embedded Systems: Real-Time Interfacing to ARCortex-M Microcontrollers, 2014,
Create space publications ISBN: 978-1463590154.
2. Embedded Systems: Introduction to ARM Cortex - M Microcontrollers, 5th edition
Jonathan W Valvano, Createspace publications ISBN-13: 978-1477508992
3. Embedded Systems 2E Raj Kamal, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2011 ISBN.
4. 0070667640, 9780070667648
References:
1. http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/HandsOn_Training_for_TI_Embedded
_Processors
2. http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MCU_Day_Internet_of_Things_2013_ Workshop
3. http://www.ti.com/ww/en/simplelink_embedded_wi-fi/home.html
4. CC3100/CC3200 SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® Internet-on-a-Chip User Guide Texas Instruments Literature
Number: SWRU368A April 2014–Revised August 2015.

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 UNIT-I
Introduction to Embedded Systems
Embedded System Introduction:
We live in an era where pervasive (spreading) computing exists everywhere, right
from a small handheld device such as a mobile phone to the electronic control units within
automobiles or avionics. Today, large volumes of information is getting processed and
communicated over the Internet every microsecond. Buzz words such as Cloud Computing,
Big Data Mining and Internet of Things are everywhere.
There are two broad classifications of computing systems - general purpose
computing system and embedded computing systems. If we define these in simple words,
general purpose computing systems are those used in desktop or laptop computers, which can
process several different applications. An embedded system refers to any device that has
some computational intelligence in it. It is generally used as a standalone system that
repeatedly performs a specific task or as part of a large system to perform multiple tasks with
the required hardware and software embedded within. Systems used in printers, washing
machines, mp3 players; CT scan machines etc. are great examples of embedded systems.
An embedded system is a constrained system and its design goals vary from a general
purpose system. The constraints are: high performance, low power consumption, small size
and low cost of the system.
The basic components of an embedded system include hardware, software and some
mechanical parts. Embedded hardware includes a processing unit, block of memory and I/O
sub-unit which are called as the system resources. The embedded software can be thought of
as the application software in a small computing system or both the system and the
application software in case of a large complex system. The system software mentioned here
is the real time operating system (RTOS) used to manage the usage of system resources by
application software.
What is an Embedded System?
 An embedded system is a system that has software embedded into computer-
hardware, which makes a system dedicated for an application or specific part of an
application or product or part of a larger system.
 An embedded system is designed to do a specific/few task only.

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  Examples:
 A Washing machine can only wash clothes.
 A Digital camera can only capture the images.
 An Air conditioner can control the temperature in the room.
Host and Target concept:

Communication
Link

Figure: Embedded System using Host and Target Machine

Performance of Host machine:

The application program developed runs on the host computer. The host computer is
also called as Development Platform. It is a general purpose computer. It has a higher
capability processor and more memory. It has different input and output devices. The
compiler, assembler, linker, and locator run on a host computer rather than on the embedded
system itself. These tools are extremely popular with embedded software developers because
they are freely available (even the source code is free) and support many of the most popular
embedded processors. It contains many development tools to create the output binary image.
Once a program has been written, compiled, assembled and linked, it is moved to the target
platform.

Performance of Target machine:

The output binary image is executed on the target hardware platform. It consists of
two entities - the target hardware (processor) and runtime environment (OS). It is needed
only for final output. It is different from the development platform and it does not contain any
development tools.

Embedded Applications:
Where Embedded Systems?
 Avionics: Navigation systems, Inertial Guidance Systems, GPS Receivers etc
 Automotives: Automatic Breaking System, Air Bag System, Ignition Systems etc.

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 Consumer Electronics: MP3 Players, Mobile Phones, Video Game Consoles, Digital
Cameras, Set top Boxes, Camcorders etc.
 Telecommunication: Cell Phones, Telephone Switches etc.
 Medical Systems: ECG, EEG, MRI, CT scan, BP Monitors, etc.
 Military Applications
 Industries
 Home Appliances: AC, TV, DVD Players, Washing machine, Refrigerators,
Microwave Oven, etc.
 Computer Peripherals: Printers, Scanners, Fax Machines.
 Computer Networking Systems: Network Routers, Switches, Hubs etc.
 Security Systems: Intruder Detection Alarms, CC Cameras, Fire Alarms
 Measurement & Instrumentation: Digital Multimeters, Digital CRO‘s, Logic
Analyzers, PLC Systems.
 Banking and Retail: ATM, Currency Counters.
 Card readers: Barcode, Smart Card Readers, Hand Held Devices.
 And Many More….

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Features and Architecture Considerations for Embedded
Systems:

CPU/Processor: It act as a brain to the system, it is used to execute the program and to
sending and receiving signals. The processing unit could be a microprocessor, a
microcontroller, embedded processor, DSP, ASIC or FPGA selected for an embedded system
based on the application requirements.

ROM for the program: Nonvolatile (read-only memory, ROM); meaning that it retains its
contents even when power is off. It also called Program memory. In embedded systems, the
application program after being compiled is saved in the ROM. The processing unit accesses
the ROM to fetch instructions sequentially and executes them within the CPU. There are
different categories of ROM such as: programmable read only memory (PROM), erasable
programmable read only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read only
memory (EEPROM) etc. There is also flash memory which is the updated version of
EEPROM and extensively used in embedded systems.

RAM for data: Random access memory (RAM) is volatile i.e. it does not retain the contents
after the power goes off. It is used as the data memory in an embedded system. It holds the
variables declared in the program, the stack and intermediate data or results during program
run time. The Processing unit accesses the RAM for instruction execution to save or retrieve
data. There are different variations of RAM such as: static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM
(DRAM), pseudo static RAM (PSRAM), non-volatile RAM (NVRAM), synchronous
DRAM, (SDRAM) etc.

I/O PORTS: To provide digital communication with the outside world. These Ports are two
types Parallel Port and Serial Port, Parallel are used to communicate with Parallel I/O devices
like LEDs, LCDs, 7-Segment Displays, Keypads etc., Serial Port is used to communicate
with Serial devices like Bluetooth module, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, GSM Modules, PCs etc.

Address and Data buses: To link these subsystems to transfer data and instructions. The
system bus consists of three different bus systems: address bus, data bus and control bus.
Processor sends the address of the destination through the address bus. So address bus is
unidirectional from processor to the external end. Data can be sent or received from any unit
to any other unit in the diagram. So data bus is bidirectional. Control bus is basically a group
of control signals from the processing unit to the external units

Timers: Timers are a fundamental concept in embedded systems and they have many use
cases such as creating accurate delays, executing a periodic task, implementing a PWM
(Pulse With Modulation) output or capturing the elapsed time between two events, to vary the

8
speed of data transfer rate i.e. Baud rate (bps-bits per second) in case serial communication
etc.

Clock: To keep the whole system synchronized. It may be generated internally or obtained
from a crystal or external source; modern MCUs offer considerable choice of clocks.

Watchdog timer: This is a safety feature, which resets the processor if the program becomes
stuck in an infinite loop/hang.

Communication interfaces: A wide choice of interfaces is available to exchange

information with another IC or System. They include Universal Asynchronous
Receiver/Transmitter (UART), Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), Inter-Integrated Circuit (I²C
or IIC), Universal Serial Bus (USB), Controller Area Network (CAN), Ethernet, and many
others.

Non-volatile Memory for data: This is used to store data whose value must be retained even
when power is removed. Serial numbers for identification and network addresses are two
obvious candidates.

Microprocessor vs. Microcontroller

Microprocessor Based Embedded System:
 CPU for Computers
 No RAM, ROM, I/O on CPU chip itself
 Example: Intel‘s 8085,8086, Motorola‘s 680xx

Microcontroller Based Embedded System:

 A Small Computer or System on Chip (SoC)
 On-chip RAM, ROM, I/O ports...
 Example: TI‘s MSP430, Motorola‘s 6811, Intel‘s 8051, Zilog‘s Z8 and PIC 16X

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S.No. Microprocessor Microcontroller
Contains Only CPU (µP);
CPU (µP), RAM, ROM, I/O Ports, Serial
1 RAM, ROM, I/O Ports, Serial Port,
Port, Timers are all on a Single Chip.
Timers are Separately Interfaced
It has Many Instructions to Move data It has One or Two Instructions to Move
2
between Memory and µP data between Memory and µC
It has Few Bit Manipulation
3 It has Many Bit Manipulation Instructions
Instructions
It has Less Number of Multifunctional It has More Number of Multifunctional
4 Pins Pins
5 General Purpose Single (Specific) Purpose
6 High Speed Low Speed
7 High Power Consumption Low Power Consumption
µP Based System Requires More µC Based System Requires Less Hardware
8
Hardware & High Cost & Less Cost
Designer can decide on the amount of Fixed amount of on-chip ROM, RAM, I/O
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ROM, RAM and I/O ports. ports

Embedded Processor and their types:

Microprocessor
Microprocessor is a programmable digital device which has high computational
capability to run a number of applications in general purpose systems. It does not have
memory or I/O ports built within its architecture. So, these devices need to be added
externally to make a system functional. In embedded systems, the design is constrained with
limited memory and I/O features. So microprocessors are used where system capability needs
to be expanded by adding external memory and I/O.
Microcontroller
A microcontroller has a specific amount of program and data memory, as well as I/O
ports built within the architecture along with the CPU core, making it a complete system. As
a result, most embedded systems are microcontroller based, where are used to run one or
limited number of applications.

Embedded Processor
Embedded processors are specifically designed for embedded systems to meet design
constraints. They have the potential to handle multitasking applications. The performance and
power efficiency requirements of embedded systems are satisfied by the use of embedded
processors.

DSP
Digital signal processors (DSP) are used for signal processing applications such as
voice or video compression, data acquisition, image processing or noise and echo
cancellation.

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ASIC
Application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is basically a proprietary device
designed and used by a company for a specific line of products (for example Samsung cell
phones or Cisco routers etc.). It is specifically an algorithm called intellectual property core
implemented on a chip.

FPGA
Field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) have programmable macro cells and their
interconnects are configured based on the design. They are used in embedded systems when
it is required to enhance

Memory Types:
The semiconductor memory can be classified into two types
 Volatile Memory
 Non-volatile memory
Volatile memory
 RAM
 Static RAM
 Dynamic RAM
Non-volatile memory
 ROM
 Masked ROM
 OTPROM
 EPROM
 EEPROM
 FLASH
 NOR FLASH
 NAND FLASH
 NVRAM (Battery Backup RAM)

Volatile Memory:
RAM (Random Access Memory):
Loses its contents when power is removed, it is usually called Random-Access
Memory-RAM. The vital feature is that data can be read or written with equal ease. It has
ability to access any memory cell directly. RAM is much faster than ROM. It used to write
and read data values while program running. Local variables, pointers, functions, recursive
functions results in using large amounts of RAM. Volatile memory is used for data, and small
microcontrollers often have very little RAM.

Static RAM:
Means that it retains its data even if the clock is stopped (provided that power is
maintained, of course). A single cell of static RAM needs six transistors. RAM therefore
takes up a large area of silicon, which makes it expensive.

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Dynamic RAM:
This needs only one transistor per cell but must be refreshed regularly to maintain its
contents, so it is not used in small microcontrollers. Most memory in a desktop computer is
dynamic RAM.

Static RAM Vs Dynamic RAM:

Static RAM (SRAM) Dynamic RAM (DRAM)

Made from Flip-Flops. Made from Capacitors

High cost (per bit) Low cost (per bit)

High using Power Low using Power

Fast Slow

Used in Cache Memory Used in Main Memory

Large in Size Low in Size

Automatically Discharges after
Will Retain State Forever
sometime, Need Refreshing

Nonvolatile Memory:
ROM (Read-Only Memory):
Retains its contents when power is removed and is therefore used for the program and
constant data. It is usually called Read-Only Memory-ROM. It is used as Program Memory in
Microcontroller. It can't be written or modified at run time. There are many types of
nonvolatile memory in use:

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Masked ROM:
The data are encoded into one of the masks used for photolithography and written into
the IC during manufacture. This memory really is read-only. It is used for the high-volume
production of stable products, because any change to the data requires a new mask to be
produced at great expense.
OTP ROM (One-Time Programmable ROM):
This is just PROM (Programmable ROM) in a normal package without a window,
which means that it cannot be erased. It can be programmed one time only. Used when the
firmware is stable and the product is shipping in bulk to customers. Devices with OTP ROM
are still widely used and the first family of the MSP430 used this technology.
EPROM (Erasable Programmable ROM):
As its name implies, it can be programmed electrically but not erased. Devices must
be exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light for about ten to twenty minutes to erase them. Erasable
devices need special packages with quartz windows, which are expensive.

Figure: Example of EPROM IC with quartz window

EEPROM:
EEPROM (also E2PROM) stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM.
EEPROMs can be programmed and erased in-circuit i.e. without removing from hardware
kit, by applying electrical signals. The contents of this memory may be changed during run
time (similar to RAM), but remains permanently saved even if the power supply is off
(similar to ROM). EEPROM is often used to read and store values, created during operation,
which must be permanently saved.
FLASH Memory:
This can be both programmed and erased electrically and is now by far the most
common type of memory. Flash Memory is designed for high speed and high density, at the
expense of large erase blocks (typically 512 bytes or larger). The practical difference is that
individual bytes of EEPROM can be erased but flash can be erased only in blocks. Most
MSP430 devices use flash memory, shown by an F in the part number. Microcontrollers use
NOR flash, which is slower to write but permits random access. NAND flash is used in bulk
storage devices and can be accessed only serially in rows.
Many microcontrollers include both: Flash Memory for the firmware (embedded
program), and a small EEPROM for parameters and history.

13
Overview of Design Process of Embedded
Systems:
The below figure shows the Design Process of Embedded Systems, In the first stage,
according to user requirements the designer chooses the electronic chip which is suitable. In
the next stage the designer will work on S/W side and H/W side separately. After that they
will integrate the both S/W and H/W to design the Embedded System.

Understand user
requirements

Choose optimum
electronic chip
S/W Side H/W Side

HLL/ALL
PCB Layout design
Algorithm

Coding/Editing Assembling
Compiling/Assembling components

Debugging

Testing Testing

Simulator

S/W H/W

DOWNLOAD

Integrate and
Testing

Embedded Product

Figure: Design Process of Embedded Systems

An example of an embedded system:

Here is a simple application to introduce a small embedded system – a stepper motor
controller for a robotics system. The stepper motor mentioned here is an electromechanical
device that rotates in discrete step angles when electrical pulses are applied to it. Suppose in
an industrial environment, a robot arm is employed to pick-up components from one
container and deposit to another container. The robot arm is operated by three stepper motors,

14
one to move the arm from one container to the other and other two to make a grip to tightly
hold the component. To control these stepper motors, a small embedded system can be
designed as shown in below figure. The hardware components are a microcontroller, three
stepper motors and a robot arm. To make this system functional, three program modules are
required.

 Module1 for the stepper motor1 to rotate counter clockwise with definite angle so that
robot arm can move from container1 to container 2 also to rotate clockwise to move
back to container1 when the component is picked.
 Module 2 for the stepper motors 2 & 3 to make the motor 2 to rotate in counter
clockwise and motor 3 to rotate in clockwise both simultaneously so that the robot
arm can pick and make a grip on the component.

Figure: Stepper Motor Control Embedded System

Programming Languages and Tools for Embedded

Design:
Programming Languages:
 Code is typically written in C or C++, but various high-level programming languages,
such as Python and JavaScript, are now also in common use to target microcontrollers
and embedded systems. Ada is used in some military and aviation projects.
Machine code: The binary data that the processor itself understands. Each instruction has a
binary value called an opcode. It is unrecognizable to humans, unless you spent a very long
time on low-level debugging. Some very early computers had to be programmed in machine
code, but that was long ago, thank goodness. You will see it, however, because the contents
of memory are shown in the debugger and machine code is included in the ―disassembly‖.

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Assembly language: Little more than machine code translated into English. The instructions
are written as words called mnemonics rather than binary values and a program called an
assembler translates the mnemonics into machine code. It does a little more than direct
translation, but not a lot, nothing like a compiler for a high-level language.

A major disadvantage of assembly language is that it is intimately tied to a processor

and is therefore different for each architecture. Even worse, the detailed usage varies between
development environments for the same processor. Most programming of small
microcontrollers was done in assembly language until recently, despite these problems,
mainly because compilers for C produced less-efficient code. Now the compilers are better
and modern processors are designed with compilers in mind, so assembly language has been
pushed to the fringes. A few operations, notably bitwise rotations, cannot be written directly
in C, and for these assembly language may be much more efficient. However, the main
argument for learning assembly language is for debugging. There is no escape if you need to
check the operation of the processor, one instruction at a time. Disassembly is the opposite
process to assembly, the translation of machine code to assembly language.

C: The most common choice for small microcontrollers nowadays. A compiler translates C
into machine code that the CPU can process. This brings all the power of a high-level
language—data structures, functions, type checking and so on—but C can usually be
compiled into efficient code. Compilation used to go through assembly language but this is
now less common and the compiler produces machine code directly. A disassembler must
then be used if you wish to review the assembly language.

C++: An object-oriented language that is widely used for larger devices. A restricted set can
be used for small microcontrollers but some features of C++ are notorious for producing
highly inefficient code. Embedded C++ is a subset of the language intended for embedded
systems. Java is another object-oriented language, but it is interpreted rather than compiled
and needs a much more powerful processor.

BASIC: Available for a few processors, of which the Parallax Stamp is a well-known
example. The usual BASIC language is extended with special instructions to drive the
peripherals. This enables programs to be developed very rapidly, without detailed
understanding of the peripherals. Disadvantages are that the code often runs very slowly and
the hardware is expensive if it includes an interpreter.

Programming Tools:
The microcontrollers can be programmed using various Programming/Development
tools like Embedded Software from Mentor Graphics, IAR Systems, Keil MicroVision from
ARM Ltd., and Code Composer Studio (CCS) from Texas Instruments.

Introduction to Code Composer Studio:

At this juncture of the book, it is important to concentrate on a single development
tool for programming the hardware. In this book, Code Composer Studio is used because it is

16
free and is supported by a large TI community commonly known as E2E. This forum is a
congregation of engineers and hobbyist working on TI products across the world.
Code Composer Studio (CCS):
CCS is a TI proprietary cross platform IDE used to convert C and assembly language
code to executable for TI processors, involving Digital Signal Processors, ARM, and other
microcontrollers. CCS combines editing, debugging and analysis tools into a single IDE
based on Eclipse open source development tool.
Compilation (Build Process):
CCS uses a Code Generation Tool (often called CGT) for compilation process also
called as build process. It is used to generate executables for a target device. This process
takes source codes written in C, C++ and/or Assembly Language and produces executable at
the output called binaries. This process undergoes many intermediated stages. A normal
development flow of a compilation process takes the source files written in C/C++ and
compiles them to create assembly language files using a compiler. For projects where source
code is written in assembly language, this process is bypassed. In many projects, some of the
logic functions are written in assembly languages along with other C/C++ source codes. After
the assembly language files are generated by the compiler, an assembler converts them to re-
locatable object files. These object files are linked to the runtime libraries included in the
project by a linker. The linker produces executables from these files using protocols
mentioned in the command file. A command file typically consists of a list of all memories of
the part and the type of software compatible to them.
CCS uses C/C++ compiler and other compilation tools which are developed by
engineers at TI over the years and packaged into TI‟s code generation tools. They are
commonly amalgamation (combination) of various tools used in compilation processes,
namely, Compiler, Assembler, Linker, Optimizer, Code Generator, Parser, Linear Assembler,
Archiver, Disassembler and many more.
Review the CCS Editing GUI – Figure below shows various panes of CCS which
appear after project is created. Understanding their nomenclature and functionality with help
in process of application development

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Debugger:
The CCS debugger depends on a configuration file and a general extension language
(GEL) file. The debugger initializes and loads the software on a target device using
information provided by these files. A target configuration file specifies
(i) Connection type to the target device,
(ii) Target device, and
(iii) About a startup script
Table: Programming/Development Tools for Tiva C Series

In CCS, startup scripts are specified to setup the memory map for debugger. It is also
used to setup any initial target state that is necessary for connection to the debugger using
memory or register writes. These scripts are known as GEL script file. „OnStartup()‟
function in the GEL file runs when the debugger is launched. After the target is connected,
„OnTargetConnect()‟defined in the GEL file is executed.
Organization and Building a CCS Project:
In CCS, designs are organized in workspaces and projects which are merely folders in
the file system. When CCS is launched, it prompts the users to provide a folder path to the
workspace. This folder consists of individual project folders and a folder named as
‗.metadata‘. The .metadata folder consists of CCS settings and preferences for the particular
workspace. Along with source files, header files and library files, each project folder contains
the build and the tool settings for the project. It also contains the target configuration file and
the command file required by the debugger. CCS has two predefined build configurations,
namely, debug and release. It also provides custom build configurations.
Debug – It is generally used when it is required to operate in debugging mode. It includes the
symbol tables and executes compilation without any optimization.
Release – Building project in this mode is suited when the user requires performance. It
discards all symbol tables and implements the full code optimization. It is therefore a noted
convention to use this mode only when the final version of a project is to be deployed on the
hardware. For all other intermediate versions, debug mode is rather preferred.
Custom Configuration – CCS also provide its users to add custom build configurations for a
particular project. It can be done by going to processor options under ‗properties -> build ->
ARM Compilers‟.

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 PART-A

1. What is an embedded system?

An embedded system employs a combination of hardware & software (a‖ computational
Engine‖) to perform a specific function; is part of a larger system that may not be a
computer‖; Works in a reactive and time-constrained environment.
2. What are the typical characteristics of an embedded system
Typical characteristics: Perform a single or tightly knit set of functions; Increasingly high-
performance§ & real-time constrained; Power, cost and reliability are often important
attributes Influence design: Application specific processor design can be a significant
component of some embedded systems.
3. What are the advantages of embedded system?
Advantages: Customization yields lower area, power, cost,
4. What is the need of watchdog timer?
Watchdog timer is a timer that resets the processor in case the program gets stuck for an
unexpected length of time.
5. What are the challenges faced in designing an embedded system?
 Amount and type of hardware needed.
 Clock rate reduction
 Voltage reduction
 Process deadlines’
 Flexibility and upgrade ability
 Wait, stop and cache disable instructions

6. What is the role of processor reset and system reset?

The role of processor reset is it begins the processing of instructions from a starting address.
System reset will reset the system after a predefined timeout.
7. What do you meant by real time ?
A time that always increments at constant intervals without stopping or resetting and that is
used as a reference by the system at all times.
8. When do we need an RTOS?
RTOS has a basic function of the OS plus functions for real time task scheduling and
interrupt latency control. It uses the timers and system clocks, time allocation and de-
allocation to attain best utilization of the CPU time under the given timing constraint for the
task.
9. What are the tools used for programming tools are used in a complex software design?

 RTOS
 Source code engineering tool
 Simulator
 Debugger
 Assembler
 Integrated development environment
19
 10. How is ARM processors different from other processors?
ARM is the industry leader in embedded and application processors, delivering high
performance computing, leading power efficiency and reduced system cost. A simpler design
facilitates more efficient multi – core CPUs and higher core counts at lower cost, providing higher
processing power and improved energy efficiency for servers and supercomputers
11. What is function of exceptions?
Exceptions provide a way to react to exceptional circumstances (like runtime errors) in our
program by transferring control to special functions called handlers.
12. When is Application Specific System Processors (ASSPs) used in an embedded system
An ASSP is dedicated to real-time video processing applications such as video
conferencing, video compression and decompression systems. It is used as an additional
processing unit for running application specific tasks in the place of processing using
embedded software.
13. Name some hardware components used in embedded system.
Power source
Clock oscillator circuit
Crystal resonator
External oscillator IC
Real time clock
Memories
14. State the need of separate data and address bus ( Nov/Dec-2018)
Address bus: The address bus helps to identify the particular location in the memory. Assume that
the CPU needs to read data from memory. Then, the address bus helps to identify that specific
location. Furthermore, each IO device has a unique ID, and it is the address of that component.
The address bus helps to transfer memory addresses of data and IO.

Data Bus: Data bus helps to transfer data between various components. It includes the related
hardware components such as wires and optical fiber. The data bus consists of 8, 32,64, etc.
separate lines. The number of lines refers to the width of the data bus. This bus width helps to
determine the data transferring rate. Therefore, the data bus width determines the system
performance, but it is expensive to increase the number of lines.
15. List out any four applications of embedded systems. ( Nov/Dec-2018)

 Avionics: Navigation systems, Inertial Guidance Systems, GPS Receivers etc

 Automotives: Automatic Breaking System, Air Bag System, Ignition Systems etc.
 Consumer Electronics: MP3 Players, Mobile Phones, Video Game Consoles, Digital
Cameras, Set top Boxes, Camcorders etc.
 Telecommunication: Cell Phones, Telephone Switches etc.
 Medical Systems: ECG, EEG, MRI, CT scan, BP Monitors, etc.
 Military Applications, Home Appliances: AC, TV, DVD Players, Washing machine,
Refrigerators,

20
 PART-B

1. Elaborate on the types of Embedded Processor and various memory types ( Nov/Dec-2018)
2. Explain about the design process of embedded systems and tools needed for the design. ( Nov/Dec-2018)
3. Explain the architecture of embedded systems.
4. With a neat block diagram explain Arm architecture.

21
 UNIT-II
Embedded Processor Architecture
CISC Vs RISC Design Philosophy:
Instruction Set Architecture:
Instruction set can be defined as the communication interface between the processor
and the programmer. Every processor has its own instruction set implemented in the hardware
to execute instructions such as move, add or multiply data in a definite way. Programmers
can either use any high level language such as C, C ++, Java etc. or assembly language to
write the program. Accordingly, a compiler or assembler can be used to translate the program
into machine understandable language following the processor instruction set. There are two
classic architectures of instruction set implementation, the Complex Instruction Set Computer
(CISC) and the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC). Each has its own advantages and
disadvantages. The CISC architecture has more complexity in the hardware itself while RISC
architecture offers more complexity to the software. The features of each architecture are
summarized as below.

S.No. CISC RISC

Most of the instructions are complex Most of the instructions are simple in
1
in type nature.
"LOAD“ and "STORE“ incorporated "LOAD" and "STORE" are independent
2
in Instructions Ex: MOV instructions Ex: LOAD, STORE
3 It has more addressing modes It has less addressing modes
4 Instruction sizes are different Instruction sizes are same
Number of machine cycles for Number of machine cycles for instruction
5
instruction are different are same
6 Fewer working registers and more Higher number of working registers so less
frequent memory access. frequent memory access.
7 Pipeline implementation is difficult. Pipeline implementation is easier.
8 Programming is easy Programming is complex
9 Hardware is complex Hardware is simple
10 Small code size Large code size
11 More complexity is given to the More complexity is offered to the compiler
hardware design. design.
12 Ex: Intel, IBM, Atmel 805x Ex: MSP430, AMD, ARM, Atmel AVR

24
Von-Neumann Vs Harvard architecture:
Memory Block:
The memory block consists of program and data memory. ROM is used as the
program memory and RAM is used as the data memory. There are two memory
architectures: Harvard and Von-Neumann.
In Harvard architecture, the program and data memories are segregated with separate
address and data bus drawn to each. So there can be parallel access to both and performance
of the system can be improved at the cost of hardware complexity. On the other-hand, the
Von-Neumann architecture has one unified memory used for both program and data. The
system is comparatively slower, but the design implementation is simple and cost effective
for an embedded system. The Von-Neumann also called as Princeton Architecture.

S.No. Von-Neumann Harvard

It has single data/address bus to fetch both It has separate data/address bus to
1
program and data fetch both program and data
Here, both program and data are stored in Here separate memory for program
2
a same (single) memory. and data.
3 Slower execution Faster execution.
It first fetches an instruction, and then it Here, both instruction and data are
4
fetches the data to process the instruction. fetches simultaneously
5 More instruction cycles are required Less instruction cycles are required
Program can be easily modified by itself It is difficult for program contents to
6
because it is stored in read-write memory be modified by the program itself
7 Widely used in microprocessors Widely used in microcontrollers
8 Ex: Intel 8086, MSP430, ARM7 Ex: Intel 8051, PIC, ARM9

25
 I/O mapped I/O vs. Memory mapped I/O
There are two techniques for addressing an I/O device by CPU:
  I/O mapped I/O (Isolated I/O or Port mapped I/O)
 
Memory mapped I/O

I/O mapped I/O:


 Here twoseparate address spaces are used - one for memory and other for I/O
devices.
  
The I/O devices are addressed with dedicated address space.
 
 Hence there are two separate control lines for memory and I/O transfer.
 
 I/O read and I/O write lines for I/O transfer
 
 Memory Write and Memory Read for memory transfer

 
Hence IN and OUT instruction deals with I/O transfer and MOV instruction deals
with memory transfer.
 
Ex: Intel’s 8085, 8086.

Memory mapped I/O:


 
The technique in which CPU addresses an I/O device just like a memory i.e., address
space is same for both I/O and Memory is called memory mapped I/O scheme.

In this scheme only one address space is used by CPU. Some addresses of the address
 space are assigned to memory location and other are assigned to I/O devices.


There is only one set of read and write lines. Hence there is no separate IN, OUT
instructions. MOVE instruction can be used to accomplish both the transfer.
  The instructions used to manipulate the memory can be used for I/O devices. 
 
Ex: Intel’s 8051, TI’s MSP430

26
 Little-Endian vs. Big-Endian
This is just a way of saying the order of storing bytes in memory. This order is little-
categorized into two i.e., endian and big-endian.


 The little-endian machines like Intel x86, thelow-order byte is stored at the lower address
and the high-order byte at the higher address.
 
 Ex: Intel’s 8086, 80x86, TI’s MSP430

 The big-endian machines like Motorola MC680xx,  the high-order byte is stored at the lower
address and the low-order byte at the higher address.
 
Ex: Motorola MC680x0, Freescale HCS08

Introduction to ARM Architecture and Cortex – M series:

ARM Architecture:
ARM cores are designed specifically for embedded systems. The needs of embedded
systems can be satisfied only if features of RISC and CISC are considered together for
processor design. So ARM architecture is not a pure RISC architecture. It has a blend of both
RISC and CISC features.

S.No. Features Benefits to Embedded System

1 High Performance Ensures the system has a fast response
2 Low power consumption Makes the system more energy efficient
3 Low silicon area Reduces the size and also consumes less power
4 High Code density Helps embedded system to have less memory footprint
Used to load data from the memory to the ARM CPU
5 Load/store architecture register or store data from the CPU register to the
memory; enables the memory access when required
Required to perform most of the operations within the
Register bank with large
6 CPU and provides faster context switch in a
number of working registers
multitasking applications

27
 A
L
U
B
U
S

Figure: ARM7 Architecture

A Basic architecture of the ARM7 core:

ARM7, the basic architecture of ARM series of cores, is introduced here in this
section. A brief introduction about each functional block of the architecture of ARM7 core
shown in above Figure is presented below.
The Register Bank has sixteen general purpose registers (R0-R15) and a current
program status register (CPSR) which are accessible by user applications. In addition to that,
it has twenty numbers of banked registers specifically used for different operating modes of
ARM core. These are invisible to user applications. The register bank has two read ports to
read operand1 and operand2 and one write port to write back the result of operation to the any
register specified in the instruction. It has an additional bidirectional port to update the
program counter with address register and incrementer. Address register content is
incremented at every sequential byte access by the incrementer but the program counter is
incremented by four in ARM state of the core or is incremented by 2 in Thumb state of the
core at every instruction access. Address register is directly connected to the address bus.

 operand 2 by specified number of bits prior
The barrel shifter can shift or rotate
to arithmetic or logic operations.

 The 32 bit ALU performs the arithmetic and logic functions. 
 
The data in and data out registers hold the input and output data from and to the memory.

28

 for the data path after decoding the fetched instruction. 
The instruction decoder and associated control logic generates appropriate control signals


The MAC unit is to multiply two register operands and accumulate with another register
holding the partial sum of the products.
The encoded instruction byte of the program saved in the code memory is fetched
through the data bus and first enters into the data-in register of the ARM architecture from
where it is delivered to the instruction decoder. After the instruction is decoded, appropriate
control signals are generated for the data path. The required registers are activated in the
register bank and the operands flow out from two read ports of register bank to the ALU:
operand1 through A-bus and operand2 through B-bus after preprocessing at barrel shifter.
The result of operation at ALU is written back to the result register through a write port at
register bank. For Load/Store instructions, after decoding the instruction, the data memory
address is first calculated at ALU as specified in the instruction and the pointer register is
updated at the register bank. The address in the pointer register is given to the address register
to access the memory and transfer data. If it is a load multiple or store multiple instruction,
the core does not halt before completing the required number of data transfers unless it is a
reset exception.
Migration to Cortex Series:
In the path of architectural evolution, ARM has contributed many versions of IP cores
to the embedded computing world. ARM pioneered embedded products are excelling in
every visible spectrum. Since its inception, ARM has migrated over a long meaningful road
map starting from v4T ARM7TDMI to v7 Cortex series of architectures achieving many
strong milestones in between. It is currently the new era of feature rich ARM Cortex series
architectures truly empowering the embedded computing world.
ARM Architecture Evolution:

Figure: Performance and capability graph of Classic ARM and Cortex embedded processors.

29
Figure: Performance and capability graph of Classic ARM and Cortex application processors.

ARM architecture has been improved a lot in the road map from classic ARM to ARM
Cortex. The above figure depicts the performance and capability comparison of classic ARM with
embedded cortex and application cortex series of processors. Even though ARM had earlier versions
of products i.e. v1, v2, v3 and v4, the classic group of ARM starts with v4T. The classic group is
divided into four basic families called ARM7, ARM9, ARM10 and ARM11.

ARM7 has three-stage (fetch, decode, execute) pipeline, Von-Neumann architecture where 
 both address and data use the same bus. It executes v4T instruction set. T stands for Thumb.

ARM9 has five-stage (fetch, decode, execute, memory, write) pipeline with higher
performance, Harvard architecture with separate instruction and data bus. ARM9 executes
 v4T and v5TE instruction sets. E stands for enhanced instructions.

ARM10 has six-stage (fetch, issue, decode, execute, memory, write) pipeline with optional
vector floating point unit and delivers high floating point performance. ARM10 executes
 v5TE instruction sets.

ARM11 has eight-stage pipeline, high performance and power efficiency and it executes v6
instructionsset. With the addition of vector floating point unit, it performs fast floating point
operations

Nomenclature:
ARM processor implementation is described by the product nomenclature as given below
ARM [x][y][z][T][D][M][I][E][J][F][-S]
x - Family
y - Memory Management.
z - Cache size
T- Thumb state
D - JTAG Debug option
M - Fast multiplier
I - Embedded ICE Macrocell

30
E - Enhanced instructions
J - Jazelle state (Java)
F - Vector floating point unit
S - Synthesizable version
Referring to the nomenclature, ARM7TDMI can be understood as an ARM7 processor with
thumb implementation, JTAG debug, multiplier and ICE macro cell. Similarly ARM926EJ-S is an
ARM9 processor with MMU and cache implementation, enhanced instructions, Jazelle state and has a
synthesizable core.

ARM Architecture v7 profile:

In order to provide a wide coverage of different application domains, addressing their
specific requirements, ARM core is evolved into architecture version7 which has three
different profiles: the Application profile(Cortex-A), Real Time profile(Cortex-R) and
Microcontroller profile(Cortex-M). Architecture v7 should not be confused with ARM7
which has been explained before under architecture v4.
Application profile (Cortex -A):
Cortex A series of architectures are multicores with power efficiency and high
performance. Every Cortex-A implementation is intended for highest performance at ultralow
power design. It supports with, in-built memory management unit. Being influenced by
multitasking OS system requirements, it has virtualization extensions and provides a trust
zone for a safe and extensible system. It has enhanced Java support and provides a secure
program execution environment. These architectures are typically designed for high end real
time safety critical applications like automotive powertrain system. Some Cortex-A
application products are smart phones, tablets, televisions and even high end computing
servers.
Real-Time profile (Cortex -R):
Cortex R series of architectures are designed for deeply embedded real time
multitasking applications. They have low interrupt latency and predictability features for real
time needs. It provides memory protection for supervisory OS tasks being in privileged
mode. It also provides tightly coupled memories for fast deterministic access. Typical
application examples are: hard disk drive controller and base band controller for mobile
applications and engine management unit where high performance and reliability at very low
interrupt latency and determinism are critical requirements.
Microcontroller profile (Cortex -M):
Cortex M series of architectures have v6-M as cortex M0, M0+ and M1 and v7-M
with Cortex M3, M4 and other successors. This series of architectures developed for deeply
embedded microcontroller profile, offer lowest gate count so smallest silicon area. These are
flexible and powerful designs with completely predictable and deterministic interrupt
handling capabilities by introducing the nested vector interrupt controller (NVIC). The small
instruction sets support for high code density and simplified software development.
Developers are able to achieve 32-bit performance at 8-bit price. The very low gate count of
Cortex M0 facilitates its deployment in analog and mixed mode devices. Due to further

31
demanding applications requiring even better energy efficiency, Cortex M0+ was designed
with two stage pipeline and achieved high performance with very low dynamic power
consumption, reduced branch shadow and reduced number of flash memory access. Cortex
M1 was designed for implementation in FPGA. It is functionally a subset of Cortex M3 and
runs ARM v6 instruction set with OS extension options. It has 32-bit AHB lite bus interface;
separate tightly coupled memory interface and JTAG interface to facilitate debug options. It
has three stage pipeline implementation and configurable NVIC for reducing interrupt
latency.
ARMv7-M architecture:
Key features for ARMv7-M architectures are:


Enable implementations with industry excelling power, performance and silicon area
 constraints with simple pipeline design.


Highly predictable and deterministic operation with Single/low cycle instruction
 execution and minimum interrupt latency with cache less memory design.

 Exceptionhandlers are standard C/C++ functions align with ARM‟s programming
standard.
 
 Debug and software profiling support.


Cortex M3 is the first architecture of ARMv7-M profile. Subsequently the architecture
was enhanced by DSP extensions and named as Cortex M4. Cortex M3 a general
purpose CPU, has optimized debug options for microcontroller applications. It has only
Thumb-2 processing core which has blend of ARM 32-bits and Thumb 16 bits
instructions which removes the need of ARM-Thumb interworking and offers high code
density at high energy efficiency. A hardware divide instruction was introduced in the
instruction set and a number of multiply instructions are also available to improve data
processing performance. It supports only two modes of operation called thread and
handler mode. User programs run in thread mode and exceptions are handled in handler
mode which is privileged. All exceptions could be programmed in C/C++. NVIC is part
of Cortex-M3 macrocell. It is a 32 bit core with 18 working registers: r0-r7 as low
registers, r8-r12 as high registers, three special purpose registers, r13 stack pointer, r14
link register, r15 the program counter, one program status register xPSR and one more
stack pointer banked for handler mode. The Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 processors also
support unaligned data accesses, a feature previously available only in high- end
processors. Cortex M4 comes under the nomenclature of ARMv7E-M. It was developed
as a high performance digital signal controller with 72 DSP instructions implemented
along with Cortex M3 instruction set retained. Single cycle execution of multiply and

accumulate instructions provides 45% speed improvement compared to Cortex M3.

32
Cortex M4 Features:

 Thumb2 significant benefits of high code density of Thumb
instruction set delivers the
with 32-bit performance of ARM.
 Optional IEEE754-compliant single-precision Floating Point Unit.
 
 Code-patch ability for memory system updates.
 
 Power control optimization by integrating sleep and deep sleep modes.
 
 Hardware division and fast multiply and accumulate for SIMD DSP instructions.
 
 Saturating arithmetic for noise cancellation in signal processing.
 
 Deterministic, low latency interrupt handling for real time-critical applications.
 
 Optional Memory Protection Unit(MPU) for safety-critical applications
 
Extensive implementation of debug, trace and code profiling capabilities.

Figure: Cortex M4 Core Architecture

The ARM Cortex-M4 architecture is built on a high-performance processing core,
with a 3-stage pipeline. Harvard architecture, optional IEEE754-compliant single-precision
floating-point computation, a range of single-cycle and SIMD multiplication and multiply-
with-accumulate capabilities, saturating arithmetic and dedicated hardware division features
make it typically suitable for high precision digital signal processing applications. The
processor delivers excellent energy efficiency at high code density and significantly
improving interrupt handling and system debug capabilities. A generic system on chip
architecture of Cortex M4 is shown in above figure. The brief description of each functional
block is given below.

33
Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller (NVIC):
Tightly integrated with the processor core, NVIC is a configurable Interrupt
Controller used to deliver excellent real time interrupt performance. Very low interrupt
latency is achieved through its hardware stacking registers. The processor automatically
saves and retrieves its state on exception entry and exit removing the code overhead from
ISRs. It also has the ability of interrupting the load and stores multiple atomic instructions
that provides faster interrupt response. The NVIC includes a Non Maskable Interrupt (NMI)
and can provide up to 256 interrupt priority levels for each of 240 interrupts it supports. A
higher priority interrupt can preempt the currently running ISR facilitating interrupt nesting.

Wake Up Interrupt Controller (WIC):

To optimize low-power designs, the NVIC integrates with an optional peripheral
called Wake up interrupt controller to implement sleep modes and an optional deep sleep
function. When the WIC is enabled, the power management unit powers down the processor
and makes it enter deep sleep mode. When the WIC receives an interrupt, it takes few clock
cycles to wake-up the processor and restore its state. So it adds to interrupt latency in deep
sleep mode. WIC is not programmable and operates completely with hardware signals.

Memory Protection Unit:

In embedded OS, MPU is used for safeguarding memory used for kernel functions
from unauthorized access by user program. In OS environment, when any untrusted user
program tries to access memory protected by MPU, the processor generates a memory
manage fault causing a fault exception. MPU divides the memory map into a number of
regions defining memory attributes for each. MPU separates and protects the code, data and
stack for each task required for safety critical embedded systems. MPU can be implemented
to enforce privilege access rules and separate tasks. It is an optional block in Cortex M4.

Bus Matrix:
The processor contains a bus matrix that arbitrates the processor core and optional
Debug Access Port (DAP) memory accesses to both the external memory system, the internal
System Control Spaces and to various debug components. It arbitrates requests from different
bus masters in the system. Bus matrix is connected to the code interface for accessing the
code memory, SRAM and peripheral interface for data memory and other peripherals and the
optional MPU for managing different memory regions.

34
Debug Access Port (DAP):

DAP, the implementation of ARM debug interface enables debug access to various
master ports on the ARM SoC. It provides system access for the debugger tool using AHB-
AP, APB-AP and JTAG-AP without halting the processor. Embedded Trace Macrocell
(ETM) generates instruction trace. Instrumentation Trace Macrocell (ITM) allows software-
generated debug messages and also to generate timestamp information. Data Watch point and
Trace (DWT) unit can be used to generate data trace, event trace, and profiling trace
information. Flash patch and break point (FPB) implements hardware breakpoints, patches
code and data from Code space to System space. Serial wire viewer (SWV) is one bit ETM
port. SWV provides different types of information like program counter values, data read and
write cycles, peripheral values, event counters and exceptions.

Floating Point Unit (FPU):

Cortex M4 architecture suggests an optional FPU which is IEEE 754 single precision
compliant. The core instruction set supports various signal processing operations. It executes
single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions with 16 bit data types. Floating point
core supports addition, multiplication and hardware division. It has a 32X32 multiply and
accumulate (MAC) unit that produces 64 bit results. Embedded signal processing
applications that involve data compression, statistical signal processing, measuring, filtering
and compressing real world analog signals can use Cortex M4 with FPU.

Floating point unit supports:


 Conversions  and floating point data formats and instructions with
between fixed point
floating point immediate data.
 
 Saturation math.
 
 Decouple 3-stage pipeline.


 Three 
modes of operations: full compliance mode, flush-to-zero mode and default NaN
mode.
 
To be disabled when it is not in use to conserve energy.

35
Introduction to the TM4C family viz. TM4C123x &
TM4C129x and its targeted applications:
TIVA TM4C123GH6PM Microcontroller:

Figure: TIVA TM4C123GH6PM Microcontroller Block Diagram

The TM4C microcontroller block diagram shown in above figure has six functional
units. The cortex M4F core, on-chip memory, analog block, serial interface, motion control
and system integration.

Features:



TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller has 32 bit ARM Cortex M4 CPU core with 80 MHz
clock rate.

36
 

Memory protection unit (MPU) provides protected operating system functionality and
floating point unit (FPU) supports IEEE 754 single precision operations.
 
 JTAG/SWD/ETM for serial wire debugs and traces (SWD/T).
 
 Nested vector interrupt controller (NVIC) reduces interrupt response latency.
 
 System control block (SCB) holds the system configuration information.


The microcontroller has a set of memory integrated in it: 256 KB flash memory, 32 KB
 SRAM, 2 KB EEPROM and ROM loaded with TIVA software library and boot loader.

Serial communications peripherals such as: 2 CAN controllers, full speed USB
 controller, 8 UARTs, 4 I2C modules and 4 Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI) modules.

On chip voltage regulator, two analog comparators and two 12 channel 12-bit analog to
digital converter with sample rate 1 million samples per second (1MSPS) are the analog
 functions in built to the device.

Two quadrature encoder interface (QEI) with index module and two PWM modules are
the advanced motion control functions integrated into the device that facilitate wheel
 and motor controls.

Various system functions integrated into the device are: Direct Memory Access
controller, clock and reset circuitry with 16 MHz precision oscillator, six 32-bit timers,
six 64-bit timers, twelve 32/64 bit captures compare PWM (CCP), battery backed

hibernation module and RTC hibernation module, 2 watchdog timers and 43 GPIOs.

Few Applications:
 
 Building automation system
 
 Lighting control system
 
 Data acquisition system
 
 Motion control
 
IoT and Sensor networks.

37
TIVA TM4C129CNCZAD Microcontroller:

Figure: TIVA TM4C129CNCZAD Microcontroller Block Diagram

Features:

 TM4C129CNCZAD  microcontroller has 32 bit ARM Cortex M4F CPU core with 120
MHz clock rate.

Memory protection unit (MPU) provides a privileged mode for protected operating
functionality 
 system
precision operations.
and floating point unit (FPU) supports IEEE 754 compliant single

 JTAG/SWD/ETM for serial wire debug and trace. 


 performance interrupt handling for time critical applications. 
Nested vector interrupt controller (NVIC) reduces interrupt response latency and high


The microcontroller has a set of memory integrated in it: 1MB flash memory, 256 KB
SRAM, 6 KB EEPROM and ROM loaded with TIVA ware software library and boot
loader.

38
 
Serial communications peripherals such as: 2 CAN controllers, full speed and high
 
speed USB controller, 8 UARTs, 10 I2C modules and 4 Synchronous Serial Interface
(SSI) modules.

On chip voltage regulator, three analog comparators and two 12 channel 12-bit analog
to digital converter with sample rate 2 million samples per  second (2MSPS) and
 temperature sensor are the analog functions in built to the device.

One quadrature encoder interface (QEI) and one PWM module with 8 PWM outputs are

the advanced motion control functions integrated into the device that facilitate wheel
and motor controls.

Various system functions integrated into the device are: Micro Direct Memory Access
controller, clock and reset circuitry with 16 MHz precision oscillator, eight 32-bit
timers, and low power battery backed
 hibernation module and RTC hibernation module,
 2 watchdog timers and 140 GPIOs.

Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) computation module is used for message transfer and
  checks. CRC module can be used in combination with AES and DES
safety system
modules.

 Advanced 
Encryption Standard (AES) and Data Encryption Standard (DES) accelerator
module provides hardware accelerated data encryption and decryption functions.


Secure Hash Algorithm/ Message Digest Algorithm (SHA/MDA) provides hardware
accelerated hash functions for secured data applications.

Address Space (Memory Map):

A TM4C123GH6PM chip consists of a 256 KB of Flash memory and 32 KB of
SRAM. The following figure and table shows the memory map of a TM4C123GH6PM chip
with addresses.

Figure: Memory Mapping in TM4C123GH6PM Chip

39
Flash Memory:
Flash memory is structured into multiple blocks of single KB size which can be
individually written to and erased. Flash memory is used for store program code. Constant
data used in a program can also be stored in this memory. Lookup tables are used in many
designs for performance improvement. These lookup tables are stored in this memory.
Table: Memory Mapping in TM4C123GH6PM Chip

Memory Type Allocated size Allocated address

Flash 256KB 0x00000000 to 0x0003FFFF

Bit-banded on-chip
32 KB 0x20000000 to 0x20007FFF
SRAM

Peripheral All the peripherals 0x40000000 to 0x400FFFFF

SRAM:
The on-chip SRAM starts at address 0x2000.0000 of the device memory map. ARM
provides a technology to reduce occurrences of read-modify-write (RMW) operations called
bit-banding. This technology allows address aliasing of SRAM and peripheral to allow access
of individual bits of the same memory in single atomic operation. For SRAM, the bit-band
base is located at address 0x2200.0000. Bit band alias are computed according to following
formula.
Bitband alias= bitband base + byte offset *32 + bit number *4
Note: Bit banding is the technique to access and modifying content of bits in a register. It is
helpful to finish the read-modify operation in single machine cycle.
The region of the memory which device consider for modification is known as bit
band region and the region of memory to which device maps the selected memory is known
as bit band alias.
The SRAM is implemented using two 32-bit wide SRAM banks (separate SRAM
arrays). The banks are partitioned in a way that one bank contains all, even words (the even
bank) and the other contains all odd words (the odd bank). A write access that is followed
immediately by a read access to the same bank. This incurs a stall of a single clock cycle.
Internal ROM:
The internal ROM of the TM4C123GH6PM device is located at address 0x0100.0000
of the device memory map. The ROM contains:
 
 TivaWare™ Boot Loader and vector table

 TivaWare™ Peripheral Driver
peripherals and interfaces
 Library (DriverLib) release of product-specific
 
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptography tables

40
  
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) error detection functionality
The boot loader is used as an initial program loader (when the Flash memory is
empty) as well as an application-initiated firmware upgrade mechanism (by calling back to
the boot loader). The Peripheral Driver Library, APIs in ROM can be called by applications,
reducing flash memory requirements and freeing the Flash memory to be used for other
purposes (such as additional features in the application). Advance Encryption Standard
(AES) is a publicly defined encryption standard used by the U.S. Government and Cyclic
Redundancy Check (CRC) is a technique to validate if a block of data has the same contents
as when previously checked.
Peripheral:
All Peripheral devices, timers, and ADCs are mapped as MMIO in address space
0x40000000 to 0x400FFFFF. Since the number of supported peripherals is different among
ICs of ARM families, the upper limit of 0x400FFFFF is variant.
Private Peripheral Bus (PPB):
Private Peripheral Bus is used for System Peripheral like System Timer (SysTick),
Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller (NVIC), System Control Block (SCB), Memory
Protection Unit (MPU), & Floating Point Unit (FPU).

On-Chip Peripherals (Analog and Digital):

SYSTEM PERIPHERALS:
  Watchdog Timer 
 
 Hibernation Module
 
 DMA
 
 GPIOs
 
 Timers
 
EEPROM

SERIAL PERIPHERALS:
  UART
 
 I2C
 
 CAN
 
 USB OTG
 
SPI/SSI

ANALOG PERIPHERALS:
  Analog Comparator 
 
12-bit ADC

MOTION CONTROL PERIPHERALS:

  PWM
 
QEI

41
Watchdog Timer:
Every CPU has a system clock which drives the program counter. In every cycle, the
program counter executes instructions stored in the flash memory of a microcontroller. These
instructions are executed sequentially. There exist possibilities where a remotely installed
system may freeze or run into an unplanned situation which may trigger an infinite loop. On
encountering such situations, system reset or execution of the interrupt subroutine remains the
only option. Watchdog timer provides a solution to this.
The primary function of the Watchdog Timer is to perform a controlled system restart
after a software problem occurs. If the selected time interval expires, a system reset is
generated.
Hibernation Module:
This module manages to remove and restore power to the microcontroller and its
associated peripherals. This provides a means for reducing system power consumption. When
the processor and peripherals are idle, power can be completely removed if the Hibernation
module is only the one powered.
To achieve this, the Hibernation (HiB) Module is added with following features:
(i) A Real-Time Clock (RTC) to be used for wake events
(ii) A battery backed SRAM for storing and restoring processor state. The SRAM consists of
16 32-bit word memory.
DMA:
Direct Memory Access is a way of streamlining transfers of large blocks of data
between two different segments of memory or between an I/O device and memory. Reading
from disk and store it in memory is a kind of operation we talking about. For this we may
prefer either of two mentioned below:

 The processor can read each byte at a time from the memory into a register,then store
the contents of the register to the suitable memory location. For each byte,
  
processor must read an instruction,
 
 instruction decoding,
 
 read the data,
 
 execute read for next part of instruction,
 
 decode the instruction,
 
Store the data.
Then the process starts over again for the next byte.
The second option is a special device, called a DMA controller (DMAC), performs
high-speed transfers between memory and I/O devices. It is typically used in moving large
sized data clusters around the system. Using DMAC, we can bypass the processor by creating
a channel between the memory and the I/O device. Thus, data is read from the I/O device and
written into memory without executing the code to perform the transfer on a byte-by-byte
basis.

42
Programmable GPIOs:
General-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins offer flexibility for a variety of
connections. The TM4C123GH6PM GPIO module is comprised of six physical GPIO blocks,
each corresponding to an individual GPIO port. The GPIO module is FiRM-compliant
(compliant to the ARM Foundation IP for Real-Time Microcontrollers specification) and
supports 0-43 programmable input/output pins. The number of GPIOs available depends on
the peripherals being used.
■ Up to 43 GPIOs, depending on configuration
■ Highly flexible pin muxing allows use as GPIO or one of several peripheral
functions
■ Fast toggle capable of a change every clock cycle for ports on Advanced High-
Performance Bus (AHB), every two clock cycles for ports on Advanced Peripheral
Bus (APB)
■ Programmable control for GPIO interrupts
– Interrupt generation masking
– Edge-triggered on rising, falling, or both
– Level-sensitive on High or Low values
■ Bit masking in both read and write operations through address lines
■ Can be used to initiate an ADC sample sequence or a μDMA transfer
■ Pin state can be retained during Hibernation mode
Timers:
Timers are basic constituents of most microcontrollers. Today, just about every
microcontroller comes with one or more built-in timers. These are extremely useful to the
embedded programmer – perhaps second in usefulness only to GPIO. The timer can be
described as the counter hardware and can usually be constructed to count either regular or
irregular clock pulses. Depending on the above usage, it can be a timer or a counter
respectively.
The TM4C123GH6PM General-Purpose Timer Module (GPTM) contains six 16/32-
bit GPTM blocks and six 32/64-bit Wide GPTM blocks. These programmable timers can be
used to count or time external events that drive the Timer input pins. Timers can also be used
to trigger μDMA transfers, to trigger analog-to-digital conversions (ADC) when a time-out
occurs in periodic and one-shot modes.
Serial Communications Peripherals:
The TM4C123GH6PM controller supports both asynchronous and synchronous serial
communications with:
■ Two CAN 2.0 A/B controllers
■ USB 2.0 OTG/Host/Device
■ Eight UARTs
■ Four I2C modules with four transmission speeds including high-speed mode
■ Four Synchronous Serial Interface modules (SSI)

43
Analog Comparators:
An analog comparator is a peripheral that compares two analog voltages and provides
a logical output that signals the comparison result. The TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller
provides two independent integrated analog comparators that can be configured to drive an
output or generate an interrupt or ADC event.
The comparator can provide its output to a device pin, acting as a replacement for an
analog comparator on the board, or it can be used to signal the application via interrupts or
triggers to the ADC to cause it to start capturing a sample sequence. The interrupt generation
and ADC triggering logic is separate. This means, for example, that an interrupt can be
generated on a rising edge and the ADC triggered on a falling edge.
Analog to Digital Converter (ADC):
ADCs are peripherals that convert a continuous analog voltage to a discrete digital
number. In order to convert to digital, the signal is sampled at higher frequencies to minimize
the signal loss. Then the amplitude at those sampled moments is converted with respect to
their quantization level. Finally these levels and moments are entitled to a unique code, which
are simply the combinations of 0‟s and 1‟s – this is called encoding.

Figure: Block Diagram of working of an ADC

Pulse width modulation (PWM):

Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a simple but powerful technique of using a
rectangular digital waveform to control an analog variable or simply controlling analog
circuits with a microprocessor's digital outputs. PWM is employed in a wide variety of
applications, from measurement & communications to power control and conversion.
Quadrature Encoder Interface (QEI):
A quadrature encoder, also known as a 2-channel incremental encoder, converts linear
displacement into a pulse signal. By monitoring both the number of pulses and the relative
phase of the two signals, you can track the position, direction of rotation, and speed. In
addition, a third channel, or index signal, can be used to reset the position counter.
A classic quadrature encoder has a slotted wheel like structure, to which a shaft of the
motor is attached and a detector module that captures the movement of slots in the wheel.

44
Register Set:
Registers are for temporary data storage within processor architecture. As shown in
Figure, ARM processor has sixteen numbers of general purpose registers, R0-R15 and a
current program status register (CPSR) defined for user mode of operation. Each of these
registers is of 32-bits. Out of these registers, R13, R14 and R15 have special purposes.

R13: Used as the stack pointer that holds the address of the top of the stack in the
current processor mode.

R14: Used as the link register that saves the content of program counter on control
transfer due to the occurrence of exceptions or using the branch instructions in the program.

R15: Used as the program counter that points to the next instruction to be executed. In
ARM state, all instructions are of 32-bits (four bytes) for which, PC is always aligned to a
word boundary. This means that the least significant two bits of the PC are always zero. The
PC can also be half word (16-bit) aligned for Thumb state (16 bit instructions) or byte aligned
for Jazelle state (8-bit instructions) supported by different versions of ARM architecture.

Figure: User Mode Register Set

45
Current Program Status Register (CPSR):

Figure: A Generic CPSR Format

CPSR, a 32-bit status register, holds the current state of the ARM core. As shown in
Fig 1.4, the register is divided into four different fields- flags, status, extension and control;
each of 8-bits. The flag field has the bit specification for four condition flags; N, Z, C and V
and is used for arithmetic and logic instructions.
 
 N-(Negation flag) = 1 indicates negative result from ALU.
 
 Z- (Zero flag) = 1 indicates zero result from ALU.
 
 C- (Carry flag) = 1 indicates ALU operation generated carry.
 
 V- (Overflow flag) =1 indicates ALU operation overflowed.
Most of the ARM instructions are conditionally executed. Based on the status of these 
condition flags, condition codes are used along with instruction mnemonics to control
whether or not the instruction will be executed. Status and extension fields are reserved for
future usage. In the control field, the least significant five bits are used to save the modes of
operation of ARM core. Processor mode can be changed by directly modifying these control
bits. The most significant three bits I, F and T have significance as below:

I = 1 indicates IRQ is disabled
 0 indicates IRQ is enabled.

F = 1 indicates FIQ is disabled
 0 indicates FIQ is enabled.


T = 1 indicates the Thumb state is active.
0 indicates ARM state is active.
Operating Modes
ARM core has seven operating modes basically used to isolate users programs from
the protected memory or OS services. The operating modes are: user, system, fast interrupt
request (FIQ), interrupt request (IRQ), abort, supervisor and undefined mode. Out of these,
only user mode is unprivileged, remaining six are privileged modes. The basic difference
between privileged and unprivileged mode is the access permission to protected area of the
memory and write access permission to CPSR_c given to only privileged modes. All

46
application programs run in user mode. All operating system kernel functions and services
run in system or supervisor mode. After reset, core enters to supervisor mode. FIQ mode is
for interrupt requesting faster response and low latency and IRQ mode correspond to the low
priority interrupt available on the processor itself. Processor enters abort mode to handle
memory access violation. In the execution flow, when processor encounters an instruction
that is not supported by the instruction set implementation, it enters to undefined mode. All
exceptions are handled in privileged modes. Privileged modes have complete read and write
access to both flags and control fields but unprivileged user mode has only read access to the
control field while both read and write access to the flags field. Processor mode is changed
automatically by the occurrence of exceptions or by modifying the control bits of CPSR by
writing its binary pattern as shown in below table, being in a privileged mode.
 
 User : unprivileged mode under which most tasks run
 
 FIQ : entered when a high priority (fast) interrupt is raised
 
 IRQ : entered when a low priority (normal) interrupt is raised
 
 Supervisor : entered on reset and when a Software Interrupt instruction is executed
 
 Abort : used to handle memory access violations
 
 Undef : used to handle undefined instructions
 
System : privileged mode using the same registers as user mode
Table: Processor mode with binary Pattern mode Control bits [4:0]

Programming Model:
Programming model of a processor is basically a set of working registers used to
perform the operations defined in its instruction set. ARM programming model has total 37
registers in its register bank which are segmented for different modes of operation as shown
in below figure. User mode register set is shared by the system mode also.
Each of the remaining privileged modes has a set of banked registers which are active
and accessible to the programmer only when the core enters to the corresponding mode.
Banked registers for a particular mode are physical replication of few of the user mode
registers along with a saved program status register (SPSR) shown by shading in the figure.

47
 If the processor mode is changed, for example from user to FIQ mode due to
occurrence of hardware interrupt (fiq), the banked registers R8-R14 from the FIQ mode will
replace the corresponding registers in user mode but the remaining user mode registers (R0-
R7) can still be used in FIQ mode after saving the previous contents.
It means registers R8-R14 of user mode are unaffected by this mode change. The
purpose of these banked registers is to reduce the context saving overhead. There is only one
dedicated PC (R15) and one CPSR for all the operation modes.
When a mode is changed, the PC and CPSR contents are saved in the link register
(R14) and SPSR of the new mode respectively. While returning back to previous mode,
special instructions are used to restore back the saved register contents. There is no SPSR
available in user mode and one important feature is that, when a mode change is forced,
CPSR content is not saved in SPSR. It happens only when exception occurs.

Figure: Complete Register Bank

Addressing Modes:
Addressing mode is the way of addressing data or operand in the instruction. Every
processor instruction set offers different addressing modes to determine the address of
operands. Some fundamental addressing modes used by most of the processors are: register
addressing, immediate addressing, direct addressing and register indirect addressing. In
register addressing mode, the operand is held in a register which is specified in the
instruction. In immediate addressing mode, the operand is held in the instruction. In direct
addressing mode, the operand resides in the memory whose address is specified in the
instruction. Similarly in register indirect addressing mode, the operand is held in the memory
whose address resides in a register that is specified in the instruction.

48
The ARM supports the following addressing modes:
1) Register Addressing Mode
2) Relative Addressing Mode
3) Immediate Addressing Mode
4) Register Indirect Addressing
5) Register Offset Addressing Mode
6) Register based with Offset Addressing Mode
  Pre-Indexed Addressing
 Pre-Indexed with write back

  Post-Indexed
1) Register Addressing: The operands are in the registers.
Ex: MOV R1, R2// move content of R2 to R1
SUB R0, R1, R2//subtract content of R2 from R1 and move the result to R0
2) Relative Addressing: Address of the memory directly specified in the instruction.
Ex: BEQ LOOP // branch to LOOP if previous instruction sets the zero flag i.e., Z=1
3) Immediate Addressing: Operand2 is an immediate value.

Ex: SUB R0, R0, #1 // Save (R0 –1) to R0

MOV R0, #0xFF00 // Put 0xFF00 to R0
4) Register Indirect Addressing: Address of the memory location that holds the operands
there in a register.
Ex: LDR R1, [R2]//Load R1 with the data pointed by register R2.
ADD R0, R1, [R2]//add R1 with the data pointed by R2 and put the result into R0
5) Register Offset Addressing: Operand2 is in a register with some offset calculation.
Ex: MOV R0, R2, LSL #3 // (R2 << 3), then move to R0
AND R0, R1, R2, LSR R3 // (R2 >> R3), logically AND with R1 and move result
to R0
6) Register based with Offset Addressing: Effective memory address has to be calculated
from a base address and an offset. Offset can be an immediate offset, register offset or
scaled register offset.
1) Pre-Indexed Addressing
Ex: LDR R2, [R3, #08] // Take value in R3, add to 08, use it as address and load data
from that address to R2
STR R1, [R0, -R2] // Register offset // Use (R0-R2) as address of the memory and
store data of R1 to that address.
LDR R3, [R1, R2 LSR #8] // Scaled register offset // Use (R1+ (R2>>8)) as address
and load the data from that address to R3.

49
2) Pre-Indexed with write back also called auto-indexing with pre-indexed addressing.
Symbol indicates that the instruction saves the calculated address in the base address
register.

50
 Ex: LDR R0, [R1, #4]! // Immediate offset // Use (R1+4) as address and load the
data from that address to R0 and update R1 by (R1+4)
STR R1, [R2, R0]! // Register offset // Use (R2+R0) as address and store the data
from R1 to that address. Update R2 by (R2+R0)
STR R3, [R1, R2 LSL #4]! // Scaled register offset // Use (R1+ (R2<<4)) as address
and store the data from R3 to that address. Update R1 by (R1+ (R2<<4))
3) Post-Indexed also called auto-indexing with post-indexed addressing.
Ex: LDR R0, [R1], #4 // Immediate offset // Load the data pointed to by R1 to R0
and then update R1 by (R1+4).
STR R1, [R3], R4 // Register offset // Store the data in R1 to the memory location
pointed to by R3 and then update R3 by (R3+R4)
LDR R2, [R0], -R3, LSR #4 // Scaled register offset // Load the data from the address
pointed to by R0 to R2 and then update R0 to (R0-(R3>>4)).

Instruction Set Basics:

In any processor architecture, an instruction includes an opcode that specifies the
operation to perform, such as add contents of two registers or move data from a register to
memory etc., with specified operands, which may specify registers, memory locations, or
immediate data.
ARM architecture has two instruction sets. The ARM instruction set and Thumb
instruction set. In ARM instruction set, all instructions are 32 bits wide and are aligned at 4-
bytes boundaries in memory. On the other hand, in thumb instruction set, all instructions are
of 16 bits wide and are aligned at even or two bytes boundaries in memory. ARM
Instructions can be categorized into following broad classes:
1) Data movement instructions
2) Data Processing Instructions
  Arithmetic/logic Instructions
 
 Barrel shifting instructions
 
 Comparison Instructions
 
 Multiply Instructions
3) Branch Instructions
4) Load and store Instructions
  Load and Store register instruction

 
 Load and Store multiple register instructions
 
 Stack instructions
 
 Swap register and memory content
5) Program Status register Instructions
  Set the values of the conditional code flag

 
 Set the values of the interrupt enable bit
 
Set the processor mode

51
 6) Exception generating Instructions
  
Software Interrupt Instruction
 
Software Break Point instruction

Table: Instruction Set Table

Instruction
Description Example Working
Mnemonic
1) Data Movement instructions
Syntax: <instruction>{<condition>}{S} Rd, N
MOV r1, r2,
Move (r2<<4) to
MOV Move a 32-bit value into a register LSL
r1.
#4
Move the NOT of the 32-bit value into
MVN MVN r1, r3 Move (~ r3) to r1.
a register
2) Data Processing instructions
i) Arithmetic Instructions; Syntax:<instruction>{<cond>}{S} Rd, Rn, N
ADC r1, r2,
ADC Add two 32-bit values and carry r1= r2+r3+Carry
r3
ADD r4, r5, r3, r4= r5+ (r3>> by
ADD add two 32-bit values
LSR # r1 r1)
Reverse subtract with carry of two 32- r3= r1- r2 -
RSC RSC r3, r2, r1
bit values ! Carry
RSB Reverse subtract of two 32-bit values RSB r3, r2, r1 r3= r1- r2
SBC Subtract with carry of two 32-bit values SBC r2,r4, r6 r2=r4-r6- !Carry
SUB Subtract two 32-bit values SUB r2,r4, r6 r2=r4-r6
ii) Logical Instructions; Syntax:<instruction>{<cond>}{S} Rd, Rn, N
logical bitwise AND of two 32-bit
AND AND r7, r5, r2 r7= r5 & r2
values
ORR r6, r4, r1,
ORR logical bitwise OR of two 32-bit values r6= r4 | (r1>>r2)
LSR r2
logical exclusive OR of two 32-bit
EOR EOR r5, r1, r2 r5= r1 ^ r2
values
BIC logical bit clear (AND NOT) BIC r3, r1,r4 r3= r1 & ~ r4
iii) Comparison Instructions; Syntax:<instruction>{<cond>} Rn, N
Flags set as
CMN Compare negated CMN r1, r2 results
of r1+r2
Flags set as
CMP r1, #
CMP Compare results of r1-
0XFF
0XFF
Flags set as
TEQ Test for equality of two 32-bit values TEQ r3, r5
results of r3 ^ r5
Flags set as
TST Test bits of a 32-bit values TST r1, r2
results of r1& r2
iv) Multiply Instructions; Syntax:MLA{<cond>}{S} Rd, Rm, Rs, Rn; MUL{<cond>}{S} Rd, Rm, Rs
MLA
MLA Multiply and accumulate r1=(r2*r3)+r4
r1,r2,r3,r4
MUL Multiply MUL r3, r7, r6 R3= r7*r6

52
 Instruction
Description Example Working
Mnemonic
3) Branch instructions
Syntax: B{<cond>} label; BL{<cond>} label; BX{<cond>} Rm; BLX{<cond>} label | Rm
B Branch B label PC= label
PC=label and Lr=
Address of the
BL Branch with link BL label next instruction
after
BL.
PC=r5 & 0Xfffffffe
BX Branch exchange BX r5
and T= r5 & 1
PC=r6 &
0Xfffffffe, T=r6 &
1 and lr= address
BLX Branch exchange with link BLX r6
of the next
instruction
after BLX.
4) Load/Store Instructions
i) Single register transfer; Syntax:<LDR|STR>{<cond>} Rd, Address
Load r0 with the
content of
LDR
LDR Load register from memory memory address
r0, [r2, #0X8]
pointed to
by [r2+0X8]
Store r1 into the
memory address
STR
STR Store register to memory pointed to by r4
r1, [r4], #0X10
and update r4 by
[r4+0X10]

ii) Multiple register transfer; Syntax:<LDM|STM>{<cond>}<addressing mode> Rn{!},{registers};

Addressing modes: IA-Increment after; IB-Increment before; DA-Decrement after; DB-Decrement
before:- Increment or decrement the memory pointer after or before the data transfer.
r2=[r6]; r3=
[r6+4];
LDMIA r6!, {r2-
LDM Load multiple registers from memory r4=[r6+8] and
r4}
update r6 by
[r6+12]
[r1-4]=r5
[r1-8]=r4
STMDB r1!,
STM Store multiple registers to memory [r1-12]=r3 and
{r3-r5}
update r1 by
[r1-12}

iii) Stack Operations ; Syntax:<LDM|STM><addressing mode> SP{!},{registers}; Addressing modes:

FA-Full ascending; FD-Full descending; EA-Empty ascending; ED –Empty descending;

r1= [Sp+4] r2=

[Sp+8]
Load multiple registers from stack LDMED Sp!,
LDM r3= [Sp+12] and
memory {r1, r3}
Sp is updated by
[Sp+12]

53
 [Sp-4]= r6
[Sp-8]= r5
Store multiple registers to stack STMFD Sp!,
STM [Sp-12]=r4 and
memory {r4,r6}
Sp is updated by
[Sp-12]
iv) Swap instruction ; Syntax: SWP{B}{<cond>} Rd,Rm,[Rn]
Load a 32 bit
swap a word between memory and a word or a byte
SWP
register from the memory
address in r2 into
SWP/SWPB
r0 and store the
r0, r1, [r2]
data in r1 to the
swap a byte between memory and a
SWPB memory address
register
in
r2.
5) Program status register instructions
MRS{<cond>} Rd,<cpsr|spsr>;MSR{<cond>} <cpsr|spsr>_<fields>,Rm MSR{<cond>}
<cpsr|spsr>_<fields>,#immediate
Move the content
Move the content of cpsr or spsr to a MOV r1, of
MRS
register. CPSR CPSR register to
r1.
Update the flag
Move an immediate data or register to MSR CPSR_f, field of CPSR by
MSR
a specific field of cpsr or spsr. r1 the
content in r1.
6) Exception generating instructions
Software interrupt instruction ; Syntax: SWI{<cond>} SWI_number (immediate 24 bit)
Execute software
Software interrupt for an operating
interrupt at
system routine.
SWI 0X123456 in
SWI Change to Supervisor mode. CPSR is
0X123456 ARM
saved in SPSR.
state of the core.
Control branches to interrupt vector.
T =0 in CPSR.

54
 PART-A

1. What is CISC?
The complex instruction set computing architecture uses an instruction set representing complex
operations. It is possible for a CISC instruction set to perform a large complex operation with a
single instruction.
2. What is RISC?
The reduced instruction set computing architecture uses instruction set representing simple
operations and it requires the execution of multiple RISC instructions to perform a complex
operation
3. Write any two difference between Van Neumann and Harvard architecture. ( nov/dec-2018)
S.No. Von-Neumann Harvard

It has single data/address bus to fetch both It has separate data/address bus to
1
program and data fetch both program and data

Here, both program and data are stored in Here separate memory for program
2
a same (single) memory. and data.

3 Slower execution Faster execution.

It first fetches an instruction, and then it Here, both instruction and data are
4
fetches the data to process the instruction. fetches simultaneously

5 More instruction cycles are required Less instruction cycles are required

Program can be easily modified by itself It is difficult for program contents to

6
because it is stored in read-write memory be modified by the program itself

7 Widely used in microprocessors Widely used in microcontrollers

8 Ex: Intel 8086, MSP430, ARM7 Ex: Intel 8051, PIC, ARM9

4. List out the chip peripherals of TM4C processors ( nov/dec-2018)

SYSTEM PERIPHERALS:
Watchdog Timer
Hibernation Module
DMA
GPIOs
Timers
EEPROM

55
 SERIAL PERIPHERALS:
UART
I2C
CAN
USB OTG
SPI/SSI
ANALOG PERIPHERALS:
Analog Comparator
12-bit ADC
MOTION CONTROL PERIPHERALS:
PWM
QEI

5. Differentiate between RISC and CISC architecture.

S.No. CISC RISC

Most of the instructions are complex Most of the instructions are simple in
1
in type nature.

"LOAD“ and "STORE“ incorporated "LOAD" and "STORE" are independent

2
in Instructions Ex: MOV instructions Ex: LOAD, STORE

3 It has more addressing modes It has less addressing modes

4 Instruction sizes are different Instruction sizes are same

Number of machine cycles for Number of machine cycles for instruction

5
instruction are different are same

Fewer working registers and more Higher number of working registers so less
6
frequent memory access. frequent memory access.

6. What is the role of watchdog timer in embedded systems?

The primary function of the Watchdog Timer is to perform a controlled system restart after a
software problem occurs. If the selected time interval expires, a system reset is generated.

7. What are the main features of ARM architecture?

1. High performance,
2. Low Power consumption
3. Load/ store architecture
4. High code density

56
8. What are the different profiles of ARM architecture v7?
1. Application profile (cortex A)
2. Real time profile (cortex R )
3. Micro controller profile (cortex M )

9. What is the difference between ARM7 and ARM architecture v7?

The term "ARM7" refers to a family of processor cores with a three-stage pipeline and a von
Neumann memory interface. These cores are relatively old now but nevertheless still widely used.
The term "ARMv7" refers to the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) version 7. Variants of this ISA
are to be found in the more recent Cortex family of cores. The ARM7 family or cores are ISA v4T;
essentially, cores running later ISAs are backwardly compatible with earlier versions, so code
written for an ARM7TDMI (ARM7 family - v4T ISA) will run on a Cortex core, but not necessarily
the other way round.

10. What are the main feature of Cortex M4?

Cortex M4 Features:
1. Thumb2 instruction set delivers the significant benefits of high code density of Thumb with
32-bit performance of ARM.
2. Optional IEEE754-compliant single-precision Floating Point Unit.
3. Code-patch ability for memory system updates.
4. Power control optimization by integrating sleep and deep sleep modes.
5. Hardware division and fast multiply and accumulate for SIMD DSP instructions

11. What is the function of Memory protection unit in Cortex M4?

Memory Protection Unit:
In embedded OS, MPU is used for safeguarding memory used for kernel functions from
unauthorized access by user program. In OS environment, when any untrusted user program tries to
access memory protected by MPU, the processor generates a memory manage fault causing a fault
exception. MPU divides the memory map into a number of regions defining memory attributes for
each. MPU separates and protects the code, data and stack for each task required for safety critical
embedded systems. MPU can be implemented to enforce privilege access rules and separate tasks. It
is an optional block in Cortex M4.

12. List the applications of TM4C family?

1. Building automation system
2. Lighting control system
3. Data acquisition system
4. Motion control
5. IoT and Sensor networks

57
 PART-B

1. Explain the block diagram of TM4C Embedded processor in detail ( nov/dec-2018)

2. Differentiate the design philosophy of CISC and Risc and list out salient feature of ARM cortex processor. (
nov/dec-2018)
3. Explain about I/O mapped I/O vs. Memory mapped I/O.
4. Explain about the addressing modes of TM4C
5. Explain about the instruction set of TM4C.

58
 UNIT-III
Overview of Microcontroller and Embedded Systems
Embedded Hardware and Various Building Blocks:
The basic hardware components of an embedded system shown in a block diagram in
below figure.
These include the processing unit, sensors and actuators, ADC, DAC, I/O unit and the
memory block. The processing unit could be a microprocessor, a microcontroller, FPGA i.e.
field programmable gate array or ASIC (Application Specific IC) depending on the
application requirements.
Sensors such as sound sensor, ambient temperature sensor, motion sensor etc. are
generally analog in nature since they sense the data from outside world. This data is
converted from analog to digital and sent to a processing unit, post which required action is
performed by actuators.

Figure: Basic block diagram of an embedded system

Processor Selection for an Embedded System:

The processing unit could be a microprocessor, a microcontroller, embedded
processor, DSP, ASIC or FPGA selected for an embedded system based on the application
requirements.

61
 This processing unit executes the application program that is saved in the program
memory ROM (read only memory). The RAM (random access memory) is used as the data
memory to hold the system stack and the variables used in the program.
Stack is a portion in the RAM reserved to hold back the status of the program when
the control is transferred by a branch instruction. To make a system interactive, input-output
(I/O) unit is required. The memory block and the I/O units communicate with the processing
unit through the system bus.
The system bus consists of three different bus systems: address bus, data bus and
control bus. Processor sends the address of the destination through the address bus. So
address bus is unidirectional from processor to the external end. Data can be sent or received
from any unit to any other unit in the diagram.
So data bus is bidirectional. Control bus is basically a group of control signals from
the processing unit to the external units.

Interfacing Processor:

Figure: Processing Unit and System Bus

Microprocessor
Microprocessor is a programmable digital device which has high computational
capability to run a number of applications in general purpose systems. It does not have
memory or I/O ports built within its architecture. So, these devices need to be added
externally to make a system functional. In embedded systems, the design is constrained with
limited memory and I/O features. So microprocessors are used where system capability needs
to be expanded by adding external memory and I/O.

62
Microcontroller
A microcontroller has a specific amount of program and data memory, as well as I/O
ports built within the architecture along with the CPU core, making it a complete system. As
a result, most embedded systems are microcontroller based, where are used to run one or
limited number of applications.
Embedded Processor
Embedded processors are specifically designed for embedded systems to meet design
constraints. They have the potential to handle multitasking applications. The performance and
power efficiency requirements of embedded systems are satisfied by the use of embedded
processors.
DSP
Digital signal processors (DSP) are used for signal processing applications such as
voice or video compression, data acquisition, image processing or noise and echo
cancellation.
ASIC
Application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is basically a proprietary device
designed and used by a company for a specific line of products (for example Samsung cell
phones or Cisco routers etc.). It is specifically an algorithm called intellectual property core
implemented on a chip.
FPGA
Field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) have programmable macro cells and their
interconnects are configured based on the design. They are used in embedded systems when
it is required to enhance the computational capability of the existing system or to make a
system reprogrammable and reconfigurable when the need arises.

Memories and I/O Devices:

Memory Block:
The memory block consists of program and data memory. ROM is used as the
program memory and RAM is used as the data memory. There are two memory architectures:
Harvard and Von-Neumann.
In Harvard architecture, the program and data memories are segregated with separate
address and data bus drawn to each. So there can be parallel access to both and performance
of the system can be improved at the cost of hardware complexity. On the other-hand, the
Von-Neumann architecture has one unified memory used for both program and data. The
system is comparatively slower, but the design implementation is simple and cost effective
for an embedded system. Various ROM and RAM devices are used in embedded systems
based on the applications.

63
ROM
Read only memory (ROM) is non-volatile i.e. it retains the contents even after power
goes off. It is used as the program memory. In embedded systems, the application program
after being compiled is saved in the ROM. The processing unit accesses the ROM to fetch
instructions sequentially and executes them within the CPU. There are different categories of
ROM such as: programmable read only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read only
memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM) etc.
There is also flash memory which is the updated version of EEPROM and extensively used in
embedded systems.
RAM
Random access memory (RAM) is volatile i.e. it does not retain the contents after the
power goes off. It is used as the data memory in an embedded system. It holds the variables
declared in the program, the stack and intermediate data or results during program run time.
The Processing unit accesses the RAM for instruction execution to save or retrieve data.
There are different variations of RAM such as: static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM
(DRAM), pseudo static RAM (PSRAM), non-volatile RAM (NVRAM), synchronous
DRAM, (SDRAM) etc.

Figure: Interconnection of RAM with Microprocessor

64
I/O Devices:
Embedded systems have to interact with the external environment through the
input/output devices.
Input Device
Embedded systems receive user commands from input devices such as keypad, switch
or a touch screen device at the input port. The processing unit executes software instructions
to process these inputs to make decisions that further guide the operation of the system. A
port is a termination point that gives connectivity between the processing unit and the
peripherals.
Output Device
Output devices are used to display results from the system or to sending data to
another connected system at the output port. Some examples of output devices are: light
emitting diodes (LEDs), liquid crystal diodes (LCDs), printers etc.

I/O Interfacing Concepts:

Figure: Interconnection of external devices with Microprocessor

I/O Communication Bus

I/O communication buses and protocols are used to communicate with the slower I/O
devices. There are two communication methods used in any system: serial communication
and parallel communication. Some of the communication protocols are: universal serial bus
(USB), inter-integrated circuit (I2C), serial peripheral interface (SPI), peripheral component
interconnect (PCI), IBM standard architecture (ISA) etc. Each protocol defines a standard
way of communication between the devices. The features and usage of these protocols have
been explained in subsequent chapters.

65
Sensors & Actuators
Sensors and electromechanical actuators are input and output devices used in real time
embedded systems to exchange real time data between the system and the external
environment. Sensors measure physical parameters such as temperature, pressure
acceleration, proximity etc. being connected at the system input ports through analog to
digital converters (ADCs). Some of the actuators used in embedded systems are: motor speed
controllers, stepper motor controllers, relays and power drivers etc. Actuators are connected
at the system output ports through the digital to analog converters (DACs).

Timer and Counting Devices:

Timers are basic constituents of most microcontrollers. Today, just about every
microcontroller comes with one or more built-in timers. These are extremely useful to the
embedded programmer – perhaps second in usefulness only to GPIO. The timer can be
described as the counter hardware and can usually be constructed to count either regular or
irregular clock pulses. Depending on the above usage, it can be a timer or a counter
respectively.
Sometimes, timers may also be termed as “hardware timers” to distinguish them from
software timers. Software timers can be described as a stream of bits of software that achieve
some timing function.
The TM4C123GH6PM General-Purpose Timer Module (GPTM) contains six 16/32-
bit GPTM blocks and six 32/64-bit Wide GPTM blocks. These programmable timers can be
used to count or time external events that drive the Timer input pins. Timers can also be used
to trigger μDMA transfers, to trigger analog-to-digital conversions (ADC) when a time-out
occurs in periodic and one-shot modes.
The GPT Module is one timing resource available on the Tiva™ C Series
microcontrollers. Other timer resources include the System Timer (SysTick) and the PWM
timer in PWM modules.
The General-Purpose Timer Module (GPTM) blocks with the following functional
options:
 16/32-bit operating modes:
16- or 32-bit programmable one-shot timer
16- or 32-bit programmable periodic timer
16-bit general-purpose timer with an 8-bit prescaler
32-bit Real-Time Clock (RTC) when using an external 32.768-KHz clock as the input
16-bit input-edge count- or time-capture modes with an 8-bit prescaler
16-bit PWM mode with an 8-bit prescaler and software-programmable output
inversion of the PWM signal
 32/64-bit operating modes:
32- or 64-bit programmable one-shot timer
32- or 64-bit programmable periodic timer

66
 32-bit general-purpose timer with a 16-bit prescaler
64-bit Real-Time Clock (RTC) when using an external 32.768-KHz clock as the input
32-bit input-edge count- or time-capture modes with a16-bit prescaler
32-bit PWM mode with a 16-bit prescaler and software-programmable output
inversion of the PWM signal
 Count up or down
 Twelve 16/32-bit Capture Compare PWM pins (CCP)
 Twelve 32/64-bit Capture Compare PWM pins (CCP)
 Daisy chaining of timer modules to allow a single timer to initiate multiple timing
events
 Timer synchronization allows selected timers to start counting on the same clock cycle
 ADC event trigger
 User-enabled stalling when the microcontroller asserts CPU Halt flag during debug
(excluding RTC mode)
 Ability to determine the elapsed time between the assertion of the timer interrupt and
entry into the interrupt service routine
 Efficient transfers using Micro Direct Memory Access Controller (μDMA)
Dedicated channel for each timer
Burst request generated on timer interrupt

Design Cycle in the Development Phase for an Embedded System:

Unlike the design of a software application on a standard platform, the design of an
embedded system implies that both software and hardware are being designed in parallel.
Although this isn’t always the case, it is a reality for many designs today. The profound
implications of this simultaneous design process heavily influence how systems are designed.
The following figure provides a schematic representation of the Design Cycle in the
Development Phase for an Embedded System.

Figure: Embedded Design Life Cycle Diagram

67
A Phase representation of the Embedded Design Life Cycle
Time flows from the left and proceeds through seven phases:
Product specification:
Partitioning of the design into its software and hardware components
Iteration and refinement of the partitioning
Independent hardware and software design tasks
Integration of the hardware and software components
Product testing and release
On-going maintenance and upgrading
The embedded design process is not as simple as above figure depicts. A considerable
amount of iteration and optimization occurs within phases and between phases. Defects found
in later stages often cause you to go back to square 1. For example, when product testing
reveals performance deficiencies that render the design non-competitive, you might have to
rewrite algorithms, redesign custom hardware such as Application-Specific Integrated
Circuits (ASICs) for better performance speed up the processor, choose a new processor, and
so on.
Uses of Target System or its Emulator and In-Circuit Emulator (ICE):
An in-circuit emulator (ICE) is a hardware interface that allows a programmer to
change or debug the software in an embedded system. The ICE is temporarily installed
between the embedded system and an external terminal or personal computer so that the
programmer can observe and alter what takes place in the embedded system, which has no
display or keyboard of its own.
An in-circuit emulator (ICE) provides a window into the embedded system. The
programmer uses the emulator to load programs into the embedded system, run them, step
through them slowly, and view and change data used by the system's software.
An emulator gets its name because it emulates (imitates) the central processing unit
(CPU) of the embedded system's computer. Traditionally it had a plug that inserts into the
socket where the CPU integrated circuit chip would normally be placed. Most modern
systems use the target system's CPU directly, with special JTAG-based debug access.
Emulating the processor, or direct JTAG access to it, lets the ICE do anything that the
processor can do, but under the control of a software developer.
ICEs attach a computer terminal or personal computer (PC) to the embedded system.
The terminal or PC provides an interactive user interface for the programmer to investigate
and control the embedded system. For example, it is routine to have a source code level
debugger with a graphical windowing interface that communicates through a JTAG adapter
(emulator) to an embedded target system which has no graphical user interface.
Notably, when their program fails, most embedded systems simply become inert
lumps of nonfunctioning electronics. Embedded systems often lack basic functions to detect
signs of software failure, such as a memory management unit (MMU) to catch memory

68
access errors. Without an ICE, the development of embedded systems can be extremely
difficult, because there is usually no way to tell what went wrong. With an ICE, the
programmer can usually test pieces of code, then isolate the fault to a particular section of
code, and then inspect the failing code and rewrite it to solve the problem.
In usage, an ICE provides the programmer with execution breakpoints, memory
display and monitoring, and input/output control. Beyond this, the ICE can be programmed to
look for any range of matching criteria to pause at, in an attempt to identify the origin of a
failure.
Most modern microcontrollers use resources provided on the manufactured version of
the microcontroller for device programming, emulating, and debugging features, instead of
needing another special emulation-version (that is, bond-out) of the target microcontroller.[1]
Even though it is a cost-effective method, since the ICE unit only manages the emulation
instead of actually emulating the target microcontroller, trade-offs must be made to keep
prices low at manufacture time, yet provide enough emulation features for the (relatively few)
emulation applications.
Note: Debugging is the process of finding and resolving defects or problems within a
computer program that prevent correct operation of computer software or a system.

69
 PART-A
1. What is real time clock?
A real-time clock (RTC) is a computer clock (most often in the form of an integrated
circuit) that keeps track of the current time. Although the term often refers to the devices
in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are present in almost any
electronic device which needs to keep accurate time.
2. What is a timer?
A timer is a specialized type of clock for measuring time intervals. By function timers
can be categorized to two main types. A timer which counts upwards from zero for
measuring elapsed time is often called a stopwatch; a device which counts down from a
specified time interval is more usually called a timer or a countdown timer.
3. Define PWM?

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is a modulation process or technique used in most

communication systems for encoding the amplitude of a signal right into a pulse width or
duration of another signal, usually a carrier signal, for transmission. Pulse-width
modulation (PWM), or pulse-duration modulation (PDM), is a modulation technique
used to encode a message into a pulsing signal.
4. What are the applications PWM?

The main advantage of PWM is that power loss in the switching devices is very low.
When a switch is off there is practically no current, and when it is on and power is being
transferred to the load, there is almost no voltage drop across the switch. Power loss,
being the product of voltage and current, is thus in both cases close to zero. PWM also
works well with digital controls, which, because of their on/off nature, can easily set the
needed duty cycle.
5. What is the use digital to analog converters?
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC, D/A, D–A, D2A, or D-to-A) is
a device that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) performs the reverse function.
6. Explain the role of sensors in embedded system design.
Sensors are input devices used in real time embedded systems to exchange real time data
between the system and the external environment. Sensors measure physical parameters
such as temperature, pressure acceleration, proximity etc. being connected at the system
input ports through analog to digital converters (ADCs).
7. What are the complicating factors in embedded design?
Complicating factors in the design of embedded systems • Many of the subtasks in design
are intertwined. • Allocation depends on the partitioning, and scheduling presumes a
certain Allocation. • Predicting the time for implementing the modules in Hardware or
software is not very easy, particularly for tasks that have not been performed before
8. What are the various embedded system designs Modeling Refining (or partioning”).
System modeling at different abstraction levels
70
 Model-based system design
Hardware/Software codesign
Software and Hardware component synthesis
System verification.

9. What are the various parameters needed to select the embedded hardware. (Nov/Dec 2018)

It includes the processing unit, sensors and actuators, ADC, DAC, I/O unit and the
memory block. The processing unit could be a microprocessor, a microcontroller, FPGA
i.e. field programmable gate array or ASIC (Application Specific IC)
depending on the application requirements.

10. State the difference between synchronous, Iso-synchronous and Asynchronous communication
from serial devices. (Nov/Dec 2018)
The protocols for serial data transfer can be grouped into two types: synchronous and
asynchronous. For synchronous data transfer, both the sender and receiver access the
data according to the same clock. Therefore, a special line for the clock signal is
required. It supports high data transfer rate. It needs clock signal between the sender and
the receiver. It requires master/slave configuration. In Asynchronous data transfer
sender provides a synchronization signal to the receiver before starting the transfer of
each message. It does not need clock signal between the sender and the receiver and It is
having slower data transfer rate.
.

PART-B

1. Explain about the various building blocks of an embedded controller. (Nov/Dec 2018)
2. How does an ICE differ from an emulator? Also explain the code generation tools for the development of
an embedded system. (Nov/Dec 2018)
3. Explain about SCI, SPI and SI ports.
4. Explain the design cycle development of embedded system
5. What are the different types of memories used in embedded system design? Explain each with examples?

71
 UNIT-IV
Microcontroller Fundamentals for Basic
Programming
GPIOs:
General Purpose Input/output (GPIO) refers to pins on a board which are connected to
the microcontroller in a special configuration. Users can control the activities of these pins in
real-time.
 GPIOs are used in devices like SoC, PLDs, and FPGAs, which inherit problems of pin
scarcity.
 They are used in multifunction chips like audio codecs and video cards for connectivity
 They are extensively used in embedded systems designs to interface the microcontroller
to external sensors and driver circuits.
GPIO pins can be configured as both input and output. There are generally two states
in a GPIO pin, High=1 and Low=0. These pins can be easily enabled and disabled by the
user. A GPIO pin can be configured as input and used as an interrupt pin typically for wakeup
events. We will see this later in this chapter when we use a switch to force the system wake
from hibernation. GPIO peripherals vary quite widely. In some cases, they can exist as a
group of pins that can be switched as a group to either input or output. In others, each pin can
be set up adaptable to either accept or act as a source for different logic voltages, with
configurable drive strengths and pull ups. Pin states of the GPIOs can be accessed using
software instructions. These instructions can be represented by one or more types of
interfaces. Memory mapped peripheral or a dedicated I/O port instruction can be used in this
regard.
Voltage levels of GPIOs are critical and it is necessary that users take note of these
voltages before interfacing. Tolerant voltages at GPIO pins are not same as the board supply
voltage. Some GPIOs have 5 V tolerant inputs: even if the device has a low supply voltage
(say 2 V), it can accept 5 V without damage. However, a higher voltage may cause damage to
the circuitry or may even fry the board.
GPIO Pins in Tiva Launchpad:
In the Tiva Launchpad, the GPIO module is composed of six physical GPIO blocks.
Each of these blocks corresponds to an individual GPIO port. There are six ports in Tiva C
series microcontrollers namely, Port A through F. This GPIO module supports up to 43
programmable input/output pins. (Although it depends on the peripherals being used)
The GPIO module has the following features:
 The GPIO pins are flexibly multiplexed. This allows it to be also used as peripheral
functions.

74
  The GPIO pins are 5-V-tolerant in input configuration
 Ports A-G are accessed through the Advanced Peripheral Bus (APB)
 Fast toggle capable of a change every clock cycle for ports on AHB, every two clock
cycles for ports on APB.
Most of the GPIO functions can operate on more than one GPIO pin (within a single
module) at a time. Can be configured to be a GPIO or a peripheral pin. On reset, the default is
GPIO. Note that not all pins on all parts have peripheral functions, in which case, e the pin is
only useful as a GPIO.
Advanced features of GPIO in Tiva Launchpad:
The GPIO module in Tiva Launch Pad can be used in advanced configurations also.
They can be used for programmable control through interrupts. These interrupts can be
triggered on rising, falling or both edges of the clock. They can also be levelled sensitive for
both high and low states. The state of these pins is retained during hibernate mode. The
programmable control for GPIO pad configuration includes
 Weak pull-up or pull-down resistors
 2-mA, 4-mA, and 8-mA pad drive for digital communication; up to four pads can sink
18-mA for high-current applications
 Slew rate control for 8-mA pad drive
 Open drain enables
 Digital input enables

Programming System Registers:

Direction and Data Registers:
Generally, every microcontroller has a minimum of two registers associated with each
of I/O ports, namely Data Register and Direction Register. As the name suggests, Direction
Register decides which way the data will flow; Input or Output. Data register stores the data
coming from the microcontroller or from the pin.
The value assigned to Direction register is configuring the pin as either input or
output. When the direction register is properly configured, the Data register can be used to
write to the pin or read data from the pin. When the Direction register is configured as output,
the information on the Data register is driven to the microcontroller pin. Similarly, when
Direction register is configured as input, the information on the microcontroller pin is written
to the Data register.
Data Direction Operation: In Tiva C series Launchpad, the GPIO Direction (GPIODIR)
register is used to configure each individual pin as an input or output. When the data direction
bit is cleared, the GPIO is configured as an input, and the corresponding data register bit
captures and stores the value on the GPIO port. When the data direction bit is set, the GPIO is
configured as an output, and the corresponding data register bit is driven out on the GPIO
port.
Data Register Operation: In Tiva C Series Launchpad, GPIODATA register is the data
register in which the values written in this register are transferred onto the GPIO port pins if
the respective pins have been configured as outputs through the GPIO Direction (GPIODIR)

75
register. The GPIO ports allow for the modification of individual bits in the GPIO Data
(GPIODATA) register by using bits of the address bus as a mask. In this manner, we can
modify individual GPIO pins in a single instruction without affecting the state of the other
pins.
Toggling Multicolor LED:
In this section we will understand how GPIOs are accessed. Embedded engineers
have been using on-board LEDs for a long time in debugging hardware programs. Thus
blinking and LED serves a much higher purpose beneath than it appears. The most famous
example, called „Blinky,‟ is used just to light up a particular onboard LED.
Switches and RGB LED: The Tiva C Series LaunchPad comes with an RGB LED. This
LED is used in the preloaded RGB quick-start application and can be configured for use in
custom applications. And two switch buttons are included on the board, used in the preloaded
quick-start application to adjust the light spectrum of the RGB LED as well as go into and out
of hibernation.
Three GPIO pins connected to the LEDs as outputs and two GPIO pins are connected
to switches. The LaunchPad board schematic and below table shows GPIO pins PF1, PF2 and
PF3 are connected to the red, blue and green color of RGB LEDs and PF4, PF0 are connected
to the SW1, SW2 of user switches respectively.

Figure: Switches and RGB Schematic Connection to GPIO Pins

Table: Switches – RGB and GPIO pin connection to the microcontroller

76
Watchdog Timer:
Every CPU has a system clock which drives the program counter. In every cycle, the
program counter executes instructions stored in the flash memory of a microcontroller. These
instructions are executed sequentially. There exist possibilities where a remotely installed
system may freeze or run into an unplanned situation which may trigger an infinite loop. On
encountering such situations, system reset or execution of the interrupt subroutine remains
the only option. Watchdog timer provides a solution to this.
A watchdog timer counter enters a counter lapse or timeout after it reaches certain
count. Under normal operation, the program running the system continuously resets the
watchdog timer. When the system enters an infinite loop or stops responding, it fails to reset
the watchdog timer. In due time, the watchdog timer enters counter lapse. This timeout will
trigger a reset signal to the system or call for an interrupt service routine (ISR).
The TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller has two Watchdog Timer modules, one
module is clocked by the system clock (Watchdog Timer 0) and the other (Watchdog Timer
1) is clocked by the PIOSC therefore it requires synchronizers.
Features of Watchdog Timer in TM4C123GH6PM controller:
 32-bit down counter with a programmable load register
 Separate watchdog clock with an enable
 Programmable interrupt generation logic with interrupt masking & optional NMI function
 Lock register protection from runaway software
 Reset generation logic with an enable/disable
 User-enabled stalling when the microcontroller asserts the CPU halt flag during debug

Figure: Operation of Watchdog Timer

The watchdog timer can be configured to generate an interrupt to the controller on its
first time out, and to generate a reset signal on its second time-out. Once the watchdog timer
has been configured, the lock register can be written to prevent the timer configuration from
being inadvertently altered.

77
Hibernation Module on TM4C:
The watchdog timer can be configured to generate an interrupt to the controller on its
first time out, and to generate a reset signal on its second time-out. Once the watchdog timer
has been configured, the lock register can be written to prevent the timer configuration from
being inadvertently altered.
To achieve this, the Hibernation (HiB) Module is added with following features:
(i) A Real-Time Clock (RTC) to be used for wake events
(ii) A battery backed SRAM for storing and restoring processor state. The SRAM
consists of 16 32-bit word memory.
The RTC is a 32- bit seconds counter and 15- bit sub second counter. It also has an
add-in trim capability for precision control over time. The Microprocessor has a dedicated pin
for waking using external signal. The RTC and the SRAM are operational only if there is a
valid battery voltage. There is a VDD30N mode, which provides GPIO pin state during
hibernation of the device.
Thus we are actually shutting the power off for the device or part at the lowest power
mode. Under such circumstances, it is safe to assume that in the wake up we are actually
coming out of reset. But this will allow the device to the keep the GPIO pins in their state
without resetting them. A mechanism for power control is used to shut down the part. In
TM4C123GH6PM we have an on-chip power controller which controls power for the CPU
only. There is also a pin output from the microcontroller which is used for system power
control.
It should be duly noted that in TIVA Launchpad, the battery voltage is directly
connected to the processor voltage and it is always valid. But in a custom design with
TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller running on a battery, if the battery voltage is not valid, it
will not go into hibernation mode.
The Hibernation module of TM4C123GH6PM provides two mechanisms for power
control:
 The first mechanism uses internal switches to control power to the Cortex-M4F.
 The second mechanism controls the power to the microcontroller with a control signal
(HIB) that signals an external voltage regulator to turn on or off.
The Hibernation module power source is determined dynamically. The supply voltage of
the Hibernation module is the larger of the main voltage source (VDD) or the battery voltage
source (VBAT).
Hibernate mode can be entered through one of two ways:
 The user initiates hibernation by setting the HIBREQ bit in the Hibernation Control
(HIBCTL) register.
 Power is arbitrarily removed from VDD while a valid VBAT is applied

78
 Figure: Block diagram of Hibernation module

Active Vs Standby Current Consumption:

Power Modes
There are six power modes in which TM4C123GH6PM operates as shown in the
below table. They are Run, Sleep, Deep Sleep, Hibernate with VDD3ON, Hibernate with
RTC, and Hibernate without RTC. To understand all these modes and compare them, it is
necessary to analyze them under a condition.
Let us consider that the device is operating at 40 MHz system clock with PLL.
Table: Power Modes of Tiva

79
Introduction to Interrupts:
The reader is aware that a microprocessor is connected to several input and output
devices. It is important at this point for us to know how a microprocessor manages these
devices efficiently.
Introduction to Interrupts and Polling:
A microprocessor executes instructions sequentially. Alongside, it is also connected to
several devices. Dataflow between these devices and the microprocessor has to be managed
effectively. There are two ways it is done in a microprocessor: either by using interrupts or by
using polling.
Polling
Polling is a simple method of I/O access. In this method, the microcontroller
continuously probes whether the device requires attention, i.e. if there is data to be
exchanged. A polling function or subroutine is called repeatedly while a program is being
executed. When the status of the device being polled responds to the interrogation, a data
exchange is initiated. The polling subroutine consumes processing time from the presently
executing task. This is a very inefficient way because I/O devices do not always crave for
attention from the microprocessor. But the microprocessor wastes valuable processing time in
unnecessarily polling of the devices.
Interrupts
However, in interrupt method, whenever a device requires the attention from the
microprocessors, it pings the microprocessor. This ping is called interrupt signal or
sometimes interrupt request (IRQ). Every IRQ is associated with a subroutine that needs to be
executed within the microprocessor. This subroutine is called interrupt service routine (ISR)
or sometimes interrupt handler. The microprocessor halts current program execution and
attends to the IRQ by executing the ISR. Once execution of ISR completes, the
microprocessor resumes the halted task.
The current state of the microprocessor must be saved before it attends the IRQ in
order to be able to continue from where it was before the interrupt. To achieve this, the
contents of all of its internal registers, both general purpose and special registers, are required
to be saved to a memory section called the stack. On completion of the interrupt call, these
register contents will be reinstated from the stack. This allows the microprocessor to resume
its originally halted task.
There are two types of interrupts namely software driven interrupts (SWI) and
hardware driven interrupts (HWI). SWIs are generated from within a currently executing
program. They are triggered by the interrupt opcode. A SWI will call a subroutine that allows
a program to access certain lower level service. HWIs are signals from a device to the
microprocessor. The device sets an interrupt line in the control bus high. Microprocessors
have two types of hardware interrupts namely, non-maskable interrupt (NMI) and interrupt
request (INTR). An NMI has a very high priority and they demand immediate execution.

80
There is no option to ignore an NMI. NMI is exclusively used for events that are regarded as
having a higher priority or tragic consequences for the system operation. For example, NMI
can be initiated due to an interruption of power supply, a memory fault or pressing of the
reset button. An INTR may be generated by a number of different devices all of which are
connected to the single INTR control line. An INTR may or may not be attended by the
microprocessor. If the microprocessor is attending an interrupt, then no further interrupts,
other than an NMI, will be entertained until the current interrupt has been completed. A
control signal is used by the microprocessor to acknowledge an INTR. This control signal is
called ACK or sometimes INTA.

Interrupt Vector Table:

It is discussed in the previous section that when an interrupt occurs, the
microprocessor runs an associated ISR. IRQ is an input signal to the microprocessor. When a
microprocessor receives an IRQ, it pushes the PC register onto the stack and load address of
the ISR onto the PC register. This makes the microprocessor execute the ISR. These
associated ISRs, corresponding to every interrupt, become a part of the executable program.
This executable is loaded in the memory of the device. Under such circumstances, it becomes
easier to manage the ISRs if there is a lookup table where address locations of all ISRs are
listed. This lookup table is called Interrupt vector table. The below table shows an interrupt
vector table for ARM cortex-M microcontroller. In ARM microcontroller, there exist 256
interrupts. Out of these, some are hardware or peripheral generated IRQs and some are
software generated IRQs. However, first 15 interrupts, INT0 to INT15 are called the
predefined interrupts. In ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers, Interrupt vector table is an on-
chip module, called as Nested Vector Interrupt Controller (NVIC).
NVIC is an on-chip interrupt controller for ARM Cortex-M series microcontrollers.
No other ARM series has this on-chip NVIC. This means that the interrupt handling is
primarily different in ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers compared to other ARM
microcontrollers
Table: Interrupt Vector Table for ARM Cortex M4

VECTOR NO. PRIORITY EXCEPTION TYPE VECTOR ADDRESS

0 - SP initial Value 0x0000.0000

1 -3 RESET 0x0000.0004

2 -2 NMI 0x0000.0008

3 -1 Hard Fault 0x0000.000C

4 Programmable Memory Management Fault 0x0000.0010

5 Programmable BUS Fault 0x0000.0014

Usage Fault (undefined instructions, divide

6 Programmable 0x0000.0018
by zero, unaligned memory access, etc.)

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 VECTOR NO. PRIORITY EXCEPTION TYPE VECTOR ADDRESS

0x0000.001C to
7 - 10 - Reserved
0x0000.0028

11 Programmable SVCall 0x0000.002C

12 Programmable Debug Monitor 0x0000.0030

13 - Reserved 0x0000.0034

14 Programmable PendSV 0x0000.0038

15 Programmable SysTick 0x0000.003C

User Interrupts (interrupts generated from 0x0000.0040 to

16 -255 Programmable
peripherals and software) 0x0000.03FC

On system reset, the vector table is fixed at address 0x0000.0000.

Predefined Interrupts (INT0-INT15)
RESET
All ARM devices have a RESET pin which is invoked on device power-up or in case
of warm reset. This exception is a special exception and has the highest priority. On the
assertion of Reset signal, the execution stops immediately. When the Reset signal stops,
execution starts from the address provided by the Reset entry in the vector table i.e.
0x0000.0004. Hereby, to run a program on Reset, it is necessary to place the program in
0x0000.0004 memory address.
NMI
In the ARM microcontroller, some pins are associated with hardware interrupts. They
are often called IRQs (interrupt request) and NMI (non-maskable interrupt). IRQ can be
controlled by software masking and unmasking. Unlike IRQ, NMI cannot be masked by
software. This is why I is named as nonmaskable interrupt. As shown in above Table, "INT
02" in ARM Cortex-M is used only for NMI. On activation of NMI, the microcontroller load
memory location 0x0000008 to program counter.
Hard Fault
All the classes of fault corresponding to a fault handler cannot be activated. This may
be a result of the fault handler being disabled or masked.
Memory Management Fault
It is caused by a memory protection unit violation. The violation can be caused by
attempting to write into a read only memory. An instruction fetch is invalid when it is fetched
from non-executable region of memory. In an ARM microcontroller with an on-chip MMU,
the page fault can also be mapped into the memory management fault.
Bus Fault
A bus fault is an exception that arises due to a memory-related fault for an instruction
or data memory transaction, such as a pre-fetch fault or a memory access fault. This fault can
be enabled or disabled.

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Usage Fault
Exception that occurs due to a fault associated with instruction execution. This
includes undefined instruction, illegal unaligned access, invalid state on instruction
execution, or an error on exception return may termed as usage fault. An unaligned address of
a word or half-word memory access or division by zero can cause a usage fault.
SVCall
A supervisor call (SVC) is an exception that is activated by the SVC instruction. In an
operating system, applications can use SVC instructions to contact OS kernel functions and
device drivers. This is a software interrupt since it was raised from software, and not from a
Hardware or peripheral exception.
PendSV
PendSV is pendable service call and interrupt-driven request for system-level service.
PendSV is used for framework switching when no other exception is active. The Interrupt
Control and State (INTCTRL) register is used to trigger PendSV. The PendSV is an interrupt
and can wait until NVIC has time to service it when other urgent higher priority interrupts are
being taken care.
SysTick
A SysTick exception is generated by the system timer when it reaches zero and is
enabled to generate an interrupt. The software can also produce a SysTick exception using
the Interrupt Control and State (INTCTRL) register.
User Interrupts
This interrupt is an exception signaled either by a peripheral or by software request
and fed through the NVIC based on their priority. All interrupts are asynchronous to
instruction execution. In the system, peripherals use interrupts to communicate with the
processor. An ISR can be also propelled as a result of an event at the peripheral devices. This
may include timer timeout or completion of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) conversion.
Each peripheral device has a group of special function registers that must be used to access
the device for configuration. For a given peripheral interrupt to take effect, the interrupt for
that peripheral must be enabled.

Interrupt Programming:
/***************************************************************************
Aim: To understand how exceptions/interrupts work
***************************************************************************/
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include "inc/tm4c123gh6pm.h"
#include "inc/hw_memmap.h"
#include "inc/hw_types.h"
#include "driverlib/sysctl.h"
#include "driverlib/interrupt.h"
#include "driverlib/gpio.h"
#include "driverlib/timer.h"
int main(void)
uint32_t ui32Period;

83
SysCtlClockSet(SYSCTL_SYSDIV_5|SYSCTL_USE_PLL|SYSCTL_XTAL_16MHZ|SYSCTL_OSC_M
AIN);
// SysCtlPeripheralEnable(SYSCTL_PERIPH_GPIOF);
GPIOPinTypeGPIOOutput(GPIO_PORTF_BASE,
GPIO_PIN_1|GPIO_PIN_2|GPIO_PIN_3);
SysCtlPeripheralEnable(SYSCTL_PERIPH_TIMER0); TimerConfigure(TIMER0_BASE,
TIMER_CFG_PERIODIC); ui32Period = (SysCtlClockGet() / 10) / 2;
TimerLoadSet(TIMER0_BASE, TIMER_A, ui32Period -1);
IntEnable(INT_TIMER0A);
TimerIntEnable(TIMER0_BASE, TIMER_TIMA_TIMEOUT);
IntMasterEnable();
TimerEnable(TIMER0_BASE, TIMER_A);
while(1)
{
}
}
void Timer0IntHandler(void)
{
// Clear the timer interrupt
// Read the current state of the GPIO pin and
// write back the opposite state
if(GPIOPinRead(GPIO_PORTF_BASE, GPIO_PIN_2)) {
GPIOPinWrite(GPIO_PORTF_BASE, GPIO_PIN_1|GPIO_PIN_2|GPIO_PIN_3, 0);
}
Else {
GPIOPinWrite(GPIO_PORTF_BASE, GPIO_PIN_2, 4);
}
}

Figure: Flowchart for servicing timer interrupts

84
In the above program, we have commented following line of the code.
// SysCtlPeripheralEnable(SYSCTL_PERIPH_GPIOF);
This means that the code is accessing the peripheral without the peripheral clock
being enabled. This should generate an exception. We can see that when this code is
executed, upon suspension, execution has trapped inside the “FaultISR()” interrupt routine.
All of the exceptions ISRs are trapped in infinite loop in the provided code. This
behavior of the program should be avoided.
If the same code is run, only this time uncommenting un-commenting the
“SysCtlPeripheralEnable” while building, then we can see the BLUE LED glow.

Basic Timer:
A standard timer will comprise a pre-scaler, an N-bit timer/counter register, one or
more N-bit capture and compare registers. Usually N is 8, 16 or 32 bits. Along with these,
there will also be registers for control and status units responsible to configure and monitor
the timer.
To count the incoming pulses, an up-counter is deployed as fundamental hardware. A
counter can be converted to a timer by fixing incoming pulses and setting a known frequency.
Also note that the size in bits of a timer should not be related directly to the size in bits of the
CPU architecture. An 8-bit microcontroller can have 16-bit timers (in fact mostly do), and a
32-bit microcontroller can have 16-bit timers (and some do).
Pre-scaler
The pre-scaler takes the basic timer clock frequency as an input and divides it by
some value depending upon the circuit requirements before feeding it to the timer, to
configure the pre-scaler register(s). This configuration might be limited to a few fixed values
(powers of 2), or integers from 1 to 2^m, where m is the number of pre-scaler bits.
Pre-scaler is used to set the clock rate of the timer as per your desire. This provides a
flexibility in resolution (high clock rate implies better resolution) and range (high clock rate
causes quicker overflow of timer). For instance, we cannot get 1us resolution and a 1sec
maximum period using a 16-bit timer. If we want 1us resolution we are restricted to about
65ms maximum period. If we want 1sec maximum period, we are bounded to about 16us
resolution. The pre-scaler allows us to manage resolution and maximum period to fit your
needs.
Timer Register
The timer register can be defined as hardware with an N-bit up-counter, which has
accessibility of read and write command rights for the current count value, and to stop or
reset the counter. As discussed, the timer is driven by the pre-scaler output. The regular
pulses which drive the timer, irrespective of their source are often called “ticks”. We may
understand now that it is not necessary for a timer to time in seconds or milliseconds, they do
time in ticks. This enables us the elasticity to control the rate of these ticks, depending upon
the hardware and software configuration. We may construct our design to some human-

85
friendly value such as e.g. 1 millisecond or 1 microsecond, or any other design specified
units.
Capture Registers
A capture registers are those hardware which can be routinely loaded with the current
counter value upon the occurrence of some event, usually a change on an input pin. Therefore
the capture register is used to capture a “snapshot” of the timer at the instant when the event
occurs. A capture event can also be constructed to produce an interrupt, and the Interrupt
Service Routines (ISR) can save or else use the just-captured timer snapshot.
There is no latency problem in snapshot value as the capture occurs in hardware,
which would be if the capture was done in software. Capture registers can be used to time
intervals between pulses or input signals, to determine the high and low times of input
signals.
Compare/Match Registers
Compare or match registers hold a value against which the current timer value is
routinely compared and shoots to trigger an event when the value in two registers matches.
 If the timer/counter is configured as a timer, we can generate events at known and
precise times. Events can be like output pin changes and/or interrupts and/or timer
resets.
 If the timer/counter is configured as a counter, the compare registers can generate
event based on preset counts being achieved.
For instance, the compare registers can be used to generate a timer “tick”, a fixed
timer interrupt used for system software timing. For example, if a 2ms tick is desired, and the
timer is configured with a 0.5us clock, setting a compare register to 4000 will cause a
compare event after 2ms. If we set the compare event to generate an interrupt as well as to
reset the timer to 0, the result will be an endless stream of 2ms interrupts.
Another notable use of a compare register can be to generate a pulse with variable
width. Set an output high/low when the timer is at 0, configure the compare register with
value of pulse width, and on the compare event set the output low/high. We may use a second
compare register with a larger value, to set the pulse interval by retuning the timer on
compare.

Real Time Clock (RTC):

The RTC module is designed to keep wall time. RTC is a mainframe clock that keeps
track of the current time. RTCs are present in approximately every electronic device which
needs to maintain accurate time. The term RTC came into picture to avoid confusion with
regular hardware clocks which are merely signals that administer digital electronics, and do
not count time in human units.
Benefits of using RTC:
 Low power consumption
 Liberates the main system for time-critical tasks
 Increases accuracy if compared to other methods

86
 A GPS receiver can cut down its startup time by comparing the current time as per its
RTC, with the moment of last valid signal. If it has been less than a few hours, then the
previous ephemeris is still usable.
With the option of alternative power source with RTCs, they can continue to keep
time while the primary power source being unavailable. This alternate source may be a
lithium battery or a super capacitor.

Figure: Real Time Clock with External Power Source

Motion Control Peripherals – PWM Module & Quadrature

Encoder Interface (QEI):
PWM Module:
Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a simple but powerful technique of using a
rectangular digital waveform to control an analog variable or simply controlling analog
circuits with a microprocessor's digital outputs. PWM is employed in a wide variety of
applications, from measurement & communications to power control and conversion.
PWM using TIVA TM4C123HG6PM
TM4C123GH6PM PWM module provides a great deal of flexibility and can generate
simple PWM signals, such as those required by a simple charge pump as well as paired PWM
signals with deadband delays, such as those required by a half-H bridge driver. Three
generator blocks can also generate the full six channels of gate controls required by a 3-phase
inverter bridge.
Each PWM generator block has the following features:
 One fault-condition handling inputs to quickly provide low-latency shutdown and
prevent damage to the motor being controlled, for a total of two inputs

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  One 16-bit counter
 Runs in Down or Up/Down mode
 Output frequency controlled by a 16-bit load value
 Load value updates can be synchronized
 Produces output signals at zero and load value
 Two PWM comparators
 Comparator value updates can be synchronized
 Produces output signals on match
 PWM signal generator
 Output PWM signal is constructed based on actions taken as a result of the
counter and PWM comparator output signals
 Produces two independent PWM signals
 Dead-band generator
 Produces two PWM signals with programmable dead-band delays suitable for
driving a half-H bridge.
 Can be bypassed, leaving input PWM signals unmodified.
 Can initiate an ADC sample sequence
The control block determines the polarity of the PWM signals and which signals are
passed through to the pins. The output of the PWM generation blocks are managed by the
output control block before being passed to the device pins.
Block Diagram:
TM4C123GH6PM controller contains two PWM modules, each with four generator
blocks that generate eight independent PWM signals or four paired PWM signals with dead-
band delays inserted.
TM4C123GH6PM controller contains two PWM modules, each with four generator
blocks that generate eight independent PWM signals or four paired PWM signals with dead-
band delays inserted.

Figure: PWM Module Block Diagram

88
 Figure: PWM Generator Block Diagram

Functional Description:
Clock Configuration
The PWM has two clock source options:
 The System Clock
 A pre divided System Clock
The clock source is selected by programming the USPWMDIV bit in the Run-Mode Clock
Configuration (RCC) register. The PWMDIV bit field specifies the divisor of the system
clock that is used to create the PWM Clock.
PWM Timer
The timer in each PWM generator runs in one of two modes: Count-Down mode or
Count-Up/Down mode. In Count-Down mode, the timer counts from the load value to zero,
goes back to the load value, and continues counting down. In Count-Up/Down mode, the
timer counts from zero up to the load value, back down to zero, back up to the load value, and
so on. Generally, Count-Down mode is used for generating left- or right-aligned PWM
signals, while the Count-Up/Down mode is used for generating center-aligned PWM signals.
The timers output three signals that are used in the PWM generation process: the direction
signal (this is always Low in Count-Down mode, but alternates between low and high in
Count-Up/Down mode), a single-clock-cycle-width High pulse when the counter is zero, and
a single-clock-cycle-width High pulse when the counter is equal to the load value. Note that
in Count-Down mode, the zero pulse is immediately followed by the load pulse. In the
figures in this chapter, these signals are labelled "dir," "zero," and "load."
PWM Comparators:
Each PWM generator has two comparators that monitor the value of the counter,
when either comparator matches the counter, they output a single-clock-cycle-width High
pulse, labeled "cmpA" and "cmpB" in the figures in this chapter. When in Count-Up/Down

89
mode, these comparators match both when counting up and when counting down, and thus
are qualified by the counter direction signal. These qualified pulses are used in the PWM
generation process. If either comparator match value is greater than the counter load value,
then that comparator never outputs a High pulse.

Figure: PWM Count-Down Mode

Figure: PWM Count- Up/Down Mode

90
PWM Signal Generator:

Each PWM generator takes the load, zero, cmpA, and cmpB pulses (qualified by the
dir signal) and generates two internal PWM signals, pwmA and pwmB. In Count-Down
mode, there are four events that can affect these signals: zero, load, match A down, and
match B down. In Count-Up/Down mode, there are six events that can affect these signals:
zero, load, match A down, match A up, match B down, and match B up. The match A or
match B events are ignored when they coincide with the zero or load events. If the match A
and match B events coincide, the first signal, pwmA, is generated based only on the match A
event, and the second signal, pwmB, is generated based only on the match B event.
Dead-Band Generator:

The pwmA and pwmB signals produced by each PWM generator are passed to the
dead-band generator. If the dead-band generator is disabled, the PWM signals simply pass
through to the pwmA' and pwmB' signals unmodified. If the dead-band generator is enabled,
the pwmB signal is lost and two PWM signals are generated based on the pwmA signal. The
first output PWM signal, pwmA' is the pwmA signal with the rising edge delayed by a
programmable amount. The second output PWM signal, pwmB', is the inversion of the
pwmA signal with a programmable delay added between the falling edge of the pwmA signal
and the rising edge of the pwmB' signal. The resulting signals are a pair of active high signals
where one is always high, except for a programmable amount of time at transitions where
both are low. These signals are therefore suitable for driving a half-H bridge, with the dead-
band delays preventing shoot-through current from damaging the power electronics.

Quadrature Encoder Interface (QEI):

A quadrature encoder, also known as a 2-channel incremental encoder, converts linear
displacement into a pulse signal. By monitoring both the number of pulses and the relative
phase of the two signals, you can track the position, direction of rotation, and speed. In
addition, a third channel, or index signal, can be used to reset the position counter.
A classic quadrature encoder has a slotted wheel like structure, to which a shaft of the
motor is attached and a detector module that captures the movement of slots in the wheel.
Interfacing QEI using Tiva TM4C123GH6PM
The TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller includes two quadrature encoder interface
(QEI) modules. Each QEI module interprets the code produced by a quadrature encoder
wheel to integrate position over time and determine direction of rotation. In addition, it can
capture a running estimate of the velocity of the encoder wheel.

91
 Figure: QEI Input Signal Logic

The TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller includes two QEI modules providing control

of two motors at the same time with the following features:
 Position integrator that tracks the encoder position
 Programmable noise filter on the inputs
 Velocity capture using built-in timer
 The input frequency of the QEI inputs may be as high as 1/4 of the processor
frequency (for example, 12.5 MHz for a 50-MHz system)
 Interrupt generation on:
 Index pulse
 Velocity-timer expiration
 Direction change
 Quadrature error detection
Functional Description:
The QEI module interprets the two-bit gray code produced by a quadrature encoder
wheel to integrate position over time and determine direction of rotation. In addition, it can
capture a running estimate of the velocity of the encoder wheel. The position integrator and
velocity capture can be independently enabled, though the position integrator must be
enabled before the velocity capture can be enabled. The two phase signals, PhAn and PhBn,
can be swapped before being interpreted by the QEI module to change the meaning of
forward and backward and to correct for misfiring of the system. Alternatively, the phase
signals can be interpreted as a clock and direction signal as output by some encoders.

92
 Figure: QEI Block Diagram
The QEI module input signals have a digital noise filter on them that can be enabled
to prevent spurious operation. The noise filter requires that the inputs be stable for a specified
number of consecutive clock cycles before updating the edge detector. The filter is enabled
by the FILTEN bit in the QEI Control (QEICTL) register. The frequency of the input
update is programmable using the
FILTCNT bit field in the QEICTL register.
The QEI module supports two modes of signal operation:
 Quadrature phase mode, the encoder produces two clocks that are 90
degrees out of phase, the edge relationship is used to determine the direction
of rotation.
 Clock/direction mode, the encoder produces a clock signal to indicate steps
and a direction signal to indicate the direction of rotation. This mode is
determined by the SIGMODE bit of the QEICTL register.
When the QEI module is set to use the quadrature phase mode (SIGMODE bit is
clear), the capture mode for the position integrator can be set to update the position counter
on every edge of the PhA signal or to update on every edge of both PhA and PhB. Updating
the position counter on every PhA and PhB edge provides more positional resolution at the
cost of less range in the positional counter. When edges on PhA lead edges on PhB, the
position counter is incremented. When edges on PhB lead edges on PhA, the position counter
is decremented. When a rising and falling edge pair is seen on one of the phases without any
edges on the other, the direction of rotation has changed.

93
The positional counter is automatically reset on one of two conditions:
 Sensing the index pulse or
 Reaching the maximum position value.
The reset mode is determined by the RESMODE bit of the QEICTL register.
 When RESMODE is set, the positional counter is reset when the index pulse is
sensed. This mode limits the positional counter to the values [0: N-1], where N is the
number of phase edges in a full revolution of the encoder wheel. The QEI Maximum
Position (QEIMAXPOS) register must be programmed with N-1 so that the reverse
direction from position 0 can move the position counter to N-1. In this mode, the
position register contains the absolute position of the encoder relative to the index (or
home) position once an index pulse has been seen.
 When RESMODE is clear, the positional counter is constrained to the range [0: M],
where M is the programmable maximum value. The index pulse is ignored by the
positional counter in this mode. Velocity capture uses a configurable timer and a
count register. The timer counts the number of phase edges (using the same
configuration as for the position integrator) in a given time period.
The edge count from the previous time period is available to the controller via the
QEI Velocity (QEISPEED) register, while the edge count for the current time period is being
accumulated in the QEI Velocity Counter (QEICOUNT) register. As soon as the current time
period is complete, the total number of edges counted in that time period is made available in
the QEISPEED register (overwriting the previous value), the QEICOUNT register is cleared,
and counting commences on a new time period. The number of edges counted in a given time
period is directly proportional to the velocity of the encoder.

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 PART- A
1. Mention the uses of Quadrature encoder Interface. (Nov/Dec 2018)
The TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller includes two QEI modules providing control of two motors at the
same time with the following features:
 Position integrator that tracks the encoder position
 Programmable noise filter on the inputs
 Velocity capture using built-in timer
 The input frequency of the QEI inputs may be as high as 1/4 of the processor
frequency (for example, 12.5 MHz for a 50-MHz system)
 Interrupt generation on:
 Index pulse
 Velocity-timer expiration
 Direction change
 Quadrature error detection

2. State the function of Watchdog timer. (Nov/Dec 2018)

The primary function of the Watchdog Timer is to perform a controlled system restart after a
software problem occurs. If the selected time interval expires, a system reset is generated.
3. What is the need of low power embedded systems.
Many embedded systems and devices often employ battery for their operation. Since the power requirement is very
high , the capacity of battery cannot compete with it. Thus embedded systems required low power for their
operations.
4. Write in brief about hibernation module?
The Hibernation module of TM4C123GH6PM provides two mechanisms for power control:
 The first mechanism uses internal switches to control power to the Cortex-M4F.
 The second mechanism controls the power to the microcontroller with a control signal
(HIB) that signals an external voltage regulator to turn on or off.
The Hibernation module power source is determined dynamically. The supply voltage of the
Hibernation module is the larger of the main voltage source (VDD) or the battery voltage
source (VBAT).
5. Discuss about RTC.
The RTC module is designed to keep wall time. RTC is a mainframe clock that keeps track of
the current time. RTCs are present in approximately every electronic device which needs to
maintain accurate time. The term RTC came into picture to avoid confusion with regular
hardware clocks which are merely signals that administer digital electronics, and do not count
time in human units.
6. Draw the block diagram of PWM module.

95
 7. Draw the circuit diagram of a QEI input signal logic

8. Mention the applications of QEI module.

QEI module of Tiva series is used in the following applications.
1. mobile robot.
2. motor control
3. Automotive
9. List the fundamental clock sources used in TM4C microcontroller.
1. precision internal oscillator.(PIOSC)
2. Main oscillator(MOSC)
3.Low frequency internal oscillatorz(LFIOSC)
4. Hibernation module clock source

10.Mention the applications of pwm module in TIVA C series.

 Measurements
 Communications
 Power control and conversions
 Audio effects and amplifications
 Motion control
 Voltage regulation in inverter application.

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 PART-B

1. With suitable interfacing diagram, explain the functionalities of GPIO control and programming system
registers. (Nov/Dec 2018)
2.With necessary interfacing diagram, elaborate on timer and real time clock interfacing. (Nov/Dec 2018)
3. Explain about interrupts in ARM CORTEX M4 Microcontroller.
4. Explain Hibernation module on TM4C.
5. Draw & explain block diagram of watch dog timer?
6. Write in detail about IO pin multiplexing.
7. Explain the functional description QEI module with neat diagram.

97
 UNIT-V
Embedded Communications Protocols and
Internet of Things
COMMUNICATION:
Communication between electronic devices is like communication between humans. Both
sides need to speak the same language. In electronics, these languages are called communication
protocols. Luckily for us, there are only a few communication protocols we need to know when
building most electronics projects. In this series of articles, we will discuss the basics of the three
most common protocols: SPI, I2C and UART.
SPI, I2C, and UART are quite a bit slower than protocols like USB, Ethernet, Bluetooth,
and Wi-Fi, but they’re a lot simpler and use less hardware and system resources. SPI, I2C, and
UART are ideal for communication between microcontrollers and between microcontrollers and
sensors where large amounts of high speed data don’t need to be transferred.
DATA COMMUNICATION TYPES: (1) PARALLEL
(2) SERIAL: (I) ASYNCHRONOUS (II) SYNCHRONOUS
Parallel Communication:
 In parallel communication, all the bits of data are transmitted simultaneously on
separate communication lines.
 Used for shorter distance.
 In order to transmit n bit, n wires or lines are used.
 More costly.
 Faster than serial transmission.
 Data can be transmitted in less time.
Example: printers and hard disk

Serial Communication Basics:

 In serial communication the data bits are transmitted serially one by one i.e. bit by bit
on single communication line
 It requires only one communication line rather than n lines to transmit data from
sender to receiver.
 Thus all the bits of data are transmitted on single lines in serial fashion.
 Less costly.
 Long distance transmission.
Example: Telephone.

100
Serial communication uses two methods:
 Asynchronous.
 Synchronous.
Asynchronous:
 Transfers single byte at a time.
 No need of clock signal
 Example: UART (universal asynchronous receiver transmitter)
Synchronous:
 Transfers a block of data (characters) at a time.
 Requires clock signal
 Example: SPI (serial peripheral interface),
I2C (inter integrated circuit).

Data Transmission: In data transmission if the data can be transmitted and received,
it is a duplex transmission.
Simplex: Data is transmitted in only one direction i.e. from TX to RX only one TX
and one RX only
Half duplex: Data is transmitted in two directions but only one way at a time i.e. two TX's,
two RX’s and one line
Full duplex: Data is transmitted both ways at the same time i.e. two TX's, two RX’s
and two lines

A Protocol is a set of rules agreed by both the sender and receiver on

 How the data is packed
 How many bits constitute a character
 When the data begins and ends

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Table: Various Serial Communication Protocols
Serial Synchronous Data transfer
Type Duplex
Protocol /Asynchronous rate (kbps)

UART Asynchronous peer-to-peer Full-duplex 20

I2C Synchronous multi-master Half-duplex 3400

SPI Synchronous multi-master Full-duplex >1,000

MICROWIRE Synchronous master/slave Full-duplex > 625

1-WIRE Asynchronous master/slave Half-duplex 16

Baud Rate Concepts:

Data transfer rate in serial communication is measured in terms of bits per second
(bps). This is also called as Baud Rate. Baud Rate and bps can be used inter changeably with
respect to UART.
Ex: The total number of bits gets transferred during 10 pages of text, each with 100 ×
25 characters with 8 bits per character and 1 start & stop bit is:
For each character a total number of bits are 10. The total number of bits is:
100 × 25 × 10 = 25,000 bits per page. For 10 pages of data it is required to transmit 2, 50,000
bits. Generally baud rates of SCI are 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19,200 etc. To transfer 2,
50,000 bits at a baud rate of 9600, we need: 250000/9600 = 26.04 seconds (27 seconds).

Synchronous/Asynchronous Interfaces (like UART, SPI,

I2C, and USB):
Serial communication protocols can be categorized as Synchronous and
Asynchronous protocols. In synchronous communication, data is transmission and receiving
is a continuous stream at a constant rate. Synchronous communication requires the clock of
transmitting device and receiving device synchronized. In most of the systems, like ADC,
audio codes, potentiometers, transmission and reception of data occurs with same frequency.
Examples of synchronous communication are: I2C, SPI etc. In the case of asynchronous
communication, the transmission of data requires no clock signal and data transfer occurs
intermittently rather than steady stream. Handshake signals between the transmitter and
receiver are important in asynchronous communications. Examples of asynchronous
communication are Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART), CAN etc.
Synchronous and asynchronous communication protocols are well-defined standards
and can be implemented in either hardware or software. In the early days of embedded
systems, Software implementation of I2C and SPI was common as well as a tedious work and
used to take long programs. Gradually, most the microcontrollers started incorporating the
standard communication protocols as hardware cores. This development in early 90‟s made
job of the embedded software development easy for communication protocols.

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 Microcontroller of our interest TM4C123 supports UART, CAN, SPI, I2C and USB
protocols. The five (UART, CAN, SPI, I2C and USB) above mentioned communication
protocols are available in most of the modern day microcontrollers. Before studying the
implementation and programming details of these protocols in TM4C123, it is required to
understand basic standards, features and applications. In the following sections, we discuss
fundamentals of the above mentioned communication protocols.

UART COMMUNICATION
In UART communication, two UARTs communicate directly with each other. The
transmitting UART converts parallel data from a controlling device like a CPU into serial form,
transmits it in serial to the receiving UART, which then converts the serial data back into parallel
data for the receiving device. Only two wires are needed to transmit data between two UARTs.
Data flows from the Tx pin of the transmitting UART to the Rx pin of the receiving UART:

UARTs transmit data asynchronously, which means there is no clock signal to synchronize
the output of bits from the transmitting UART to the sampling of bits by the receiving UART.
Instead of a clock signal, the transmitting UART adds start and stop bits to the data packet being
transferred. These bits define the beginning and end of the data packet so the receiving UART
knows when to start reading the bits.
When the receiving UART detects a start bit, it starts to read the incoming bits at a
specific frequency known as the baud rate. Baud rate is a measure of the speed of data
transfer, expressed in bits per second (bps). Both UARTs must operate at about the same baud
rate. The baud rate between the transmitting and receiving UARTs can only differ by about 10%
before the timing of bits gets too far off.
Both UARTs must be configured to transmit and receive the same data packet structure.

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HOW UART WORKS
The UART that is going to transmit data receives the data from a data bus. The data bus
is used to send data to the UART by another device like a CPU, memory, or microcontroller.
Data is transferred from the data bus to the transmitting UART in parallel form. After the
transmitting UART gets the parallel data from the data bus, it adds a start bit, a parity bit, and a
stop bit, creating the data packet. Next, the data packet is output serially, bit by bit at the Tx pin.
The receiving UART reads the data packet bit by bit at its Rx pin. The receiving UART then
converts the data back into parallel form and removes the start bit, parity bit, and stop bits.
Finally, the receiving UART transfers the data packet in parallel to the data bus on the receiving
end:

UART transmitted data is organized into packets. Each packet contains 1 start bit, 5 to 9
data bits (depending on the UART), an optional parity bit, and 1 or 2 stop bits:

START BIT
The UART data transmission line is normally held at a high voltage level when it’s
not transmitting data. To start the transfer of data, the transmitting UART pulls the transmission
line from high to low for one clock cycle. When the receiving UART detects the high to low
voltage transition, it begins reading the bits in the data frame at the frequency of the baud rate.

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DATA FRAME
The data frame contains the actual data being transferred. It can be 5 bits to 9 bits long if
a parity bit is used. If no parity bit is used, the data frame can be 8 bits long. In most cases, the
data is sent with the least significant bit first.

PARITY
Parity describes the evenness or oddness of a number. The parity bit is a way for the
receiving UART to tell if any data has changed during transmission. Bits can be changed
by electromagnetic radiation, mismatched baud rates, or long distance data transfers. After the
receiving UART reads the data frame, it counts the number of bits with a value of 1 and checks if
the total is an even or odd number. If the parity bit is a 0 (even parity), the 1 bits in the data frame
should total to an even number. If the parity bit is a 1 (odd parity), the 1 bits in the data frame
should total to an odd number. When the parity bit matches the data, the UART knows that the
transmission was free of errors. But if the parity bit is a 0, and the total is odd; or the parity bit is a
1, and the total is even, the UART knows that bits in the data frame have changed.

STOP BITS
The Stop Bit, as the name suggests, marks the end of the data packet. It is usually two
bits long but often only on bit is used. In order to end the transmission, the UART maintains the
data line at high voltage (1).

STEPS OF UART TRANSMISSION

1. The transmitting UART receives data in parallel from the data bus:

2. The transmitting UART adds the start bit, parity bit, and the stop bit(s) to the data frame:

105
3. The entire packet is sent serially from the transmitting UART to the receiving UART. The
receiving UART samples the data line at the pre-configured baud rate:

4. The receiving UART discards the start bit, parity bit, and stop bit from the data frame:

5. The receiving UART converts the serial data back into parallel and transfers it to the data bus
on the receiving end:

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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF UARTS
No communication protocol is perfect, but UARTs are pretty good at what they do. Here are
some pros and cons to help you decide whether or not they fit the needs of your project:

ADVANTAGES
 Only uses two wires
 No clock signal is necessary
 Has a parity bit to allow for error checking
 The structure of the data packet can be changed as long as both sides are set up for it
 Well documented and widely used method
DISADVANTAGES
 The size of the data frame is limited to a maximum of 9 bits
 Doesn’t support multiple slave or multiple master systems
 The baud rates of each UART must be within 10% of each other

UART or Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter is a dedicated hardware

associated with serial communication. The hardware for UART can be a circuit integrated on the
microcontroller or a dedicated IC. This is contrast to SPI or I2C, which are just communication
protocols.

UART is one of the most simple and most commonly used Serial Communication
techniques. Today, UART is being used in many applications like GPS Receivers, Bluetooth
Modules, GSM and GPRS Modems, Wireless Communication Systems, RFID based applications
etc.

SPI COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL

SPI is a common communication protocol used by many different devices. For example,
SD card modules, RFID card reader modules, and 2.4 GHz wireless transmitter/receivers all use
SPI to communicate with microcontrollers.
One unique benefit of SPI is the fact that data can be transferred without interruption.
Any number of bits can be sent or received in a continuous stream. With I2C and UART, data is
sent in packets, limited to a specific number of bits. Start and stop conditions define the
beginning and end of each packet, so the data is interrupted during transmission.
Devices communicating via SPI are in a master-slave relationship. The master is the
controlling device (usually a microcontroller), while the slave (usually a sensor, display, or
memory chip) takes instruction from the master. The simplest configuration of SPI is a single
master, single slave system, but one master can control more than one slave (more on this
below).

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MOSI (Master Output/Slave Input) – Line for the master to send data to the slave.
MISO (Master Input/Slave Output) – Line for the slave to send data to the master
SCLK (Clock) – Line for the clock signal.
SS/CS (Slave Select/Chip Select) – Line for the master to select which slave to send data to.

*In practice, the number of slaves is limited by the load capacitance of the system, which reduces the
ability of the master to accurately switch between voltage levels.

HOW SPI WORKS

THE CLOCK
The clock signal synchronizes the output of data bits from the master to the sampling of
bits by the slave. One bit of data is transferred in each clock cycle, so the speed of data transfer
is determined by the frequency of the clock signal. SPI communication is always initiated by the
master since the master configures and generates the clock signal.
Any communication protocol where devices share a clock signal is known
as synchronous. SPI is a synchronous communication protocol. There are
also asynchronous methods that don’t use a clock signal. For example, in UART communication,
both sides are set to a pre-configured baud rate that dictates the speed and timing of data
transmission.
The clock signal in SPI can be modified using the properties of clock polarity and clock
phase. These two properties work together to define when the bits are output and when they are
sampled. Clock polarity can be set by the master to allow for bits to be output and sampled on
either the rising or falling edge of the clock cycle. Clock phase can be set for output and sampling
to occur on either the first edge or second edge of the clock cycle, regardless of whether it is
rising or falling.

SLAVE SELECT
The master can choose which slave it wants to talk to by setting the slave’s CS/SS line to
a low voltage level. In the idle, non-transmitting state, the slave select line is kept at a high
voltage level. Multiple CS/SS pins may be available on the master, which allows for multiple
slaves to be wired in parallel. If only one CS/SS pin is present, multiple slaves can be wired to
the master by daisy-chaining.

MULTIPLE SLAVES
SPI can be set up to operate with a single master and a single slave, and it can be set up
with multiple slaves controlled by a single master. There are two ways to connect multiple slaves
to the master. If the master has multiple slave select pins, the slaves can be wired in parallel like
this:

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If only one slave select pin is available, the slaves can be daisy-chained like this:

MOSI AND MISO

The master sends data to the slave bit by bit, in serial through the MOSI line. The slave
receives the data sent from the master at the MOSI pin. Data sent from the master to the slave is
usually sent with the most significant bit first.
The slave can also send data back to the master through the MISO line in serial. The
data sent from the slave back to the master is usually sent with the least significant bit first.

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STEPS OF SPI DATA TRANSMISSION
1. The master outputs the clock signal:

2. The master switches the SS/CS pin to a low voltage state, which activates the slave:

3. The master sends the data one bit at a time to the slave along the MOSI line. The slave reads
the bits as they are received:

4. If a response is needed, the slave returns data one bit at a time to the master along the MISO
line. The master reads the bits as they are received:

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SPI

There are some advantages and disadvantages to using SPI, and if given the choice
between different communication protocols, you should know when to use SPI according to the
requirements of your project:

110
ADVANTAGES
 No start and stop bits, so the data can be streamed continuously without interruption
 No complicated slave addressing system like I2C
 Higher data transfer rate than I2C (almost twice as fast)
 Separate MISO and MOSI lines, so data can be sent and received at the same time

DISADVANTAGES
 Uses four wires (I2C and UARTs use two)
 No acknowledgement that the data has been successfully received (I2C has this)
 No form of error checking like the parity bit in UART
 Only allows for a single master

Fig: SPI Master connected to a single slave

Fig: SPI master connected to multiple slaves

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I2C COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL
Inter IC (i2c) (IIC) is important serial communication protocol in modern electronic
systems. Philips invented this protocol in 1986. The objective of reducing the cost of production
of television remote control motivated Philips to invent this protocol. IIC is a serial bus interface,
can be implemented in software, but most of the microcontrollers support IIC by incorporating it
as hard IP (Intellectual Property). IIC can be used to interface microcontroller with RTC,
EEPROM and different variety of sensors. IIC is used to interface chips on motherboard,
generally between a processor chip and any peripheral which supports IIC. IIC is very reliable
wireline communication protocol for an on board or short distances. I2C is a serial protocol for
two-wire interface to connect low-speed devices like microcontrollers, EEPROMs, A/D and D/A
converters, I/O interfaces and other similar peripherals in embedded systems

I2C combines the best features of SPI and UARTs. With I2C, you can connect multiple
slaves to a single master (like SPI) and you can have multiple masters controlling single, or
multiple slaves. This is really useful when you want to have more than one microcontroller
logging data to a single memory card or displaying text to a single LCD.

IIC protocol uses two wires for data transfer between devices: Serial Data Line (SDA)
and Serial Clock Line (SCL). The reduction in number of pins in comparison with parallel data
transfer is evident. This reduces the cost of production, package size and power consumption.
IIC is also best suited protocol for battery operated devices. IIC is also referred as two wire serial
interface (TWI).

SDA (Serial Data) – The line for the master and slave to send and receive data.
SCL (Serial Clock) – The line that carries the clock signal.
I2C is a serial communication protocol, so data is transferred bit by bit along a single wire
(the SDA line).

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 Like SPI, I2C is synchronous, so the output of bits is synchronized to the sampling of bits
by a clock signal shared between the master and the slave. The clock signal is always controlled
by the master.

GENERAL ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF I2C

To implement I2C (For TIVA series microcontrollers or for most of the
microcontrollers) a 4.7kilo ohm pull-up resistor for each line is needed. This is required to
implement wired-AND logic in IIC.
More than 100 devices can be connected to I2C bus theoretically. It is better to restrict
to 15 devices for better performance of the network. Each device is called as node. Nodes
which generates clock are called Master nodes and devices which work based on the clock
generated by master node are called Slave nodes. Generally, master nodes initiate and
terminate the transmission. The four possible modes of operation are: master transmitter,
master receiver, slave transmitter and slave receiver.

HOW I2C WORKS

With I2C, data is transferred in messages. Messages are broken up into frames of data.
Each message has an address frame that contains the binary address of the slave, and one or
more data frames that contain the data being transmitted. The message also includes start and
stop conditions, read/write bits, and ACK/NACK bits between each data frame:

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Start Condition: The SDA line switches from a high voltage level to a low voltage level before the
SCL line switches from high to low.
Stop Condition: The SDA line switches from a low voltage level to a high voltage level after the
SCL line switches from low to high.
Address Frame: A 7 or 10 bit sequence unique to each slave that identifies the slave when the
master wants to talk to it.
Read/Write Bit: A single bit specifying whether the master is sending data to the slave (low
voltage level) or requesting data from it (high voltage level).
ACK/NACK Bit: Each frame in a message is followed by an acknowledge/no-acknowledge bit. If
an address frame or data frame was successfully received, an ACK bit is returned to the sender
from the receiving device.

ADDRESSING
I2C doesn’t have slave select lines like SPI, so it needs another way to let the slave know
that data is being sent to it, and not another slave. It does this by addressing. The address frame
is always the first frame after the start bit in a new message.
The master sends the address of the slave it wants to communicate with to every slave
connected to it. Each slave then compares the address sent from the master to its own address.
If the address matches, it sends a low voltage ACK bit back to the master. If the address doesn’t
match, the slave does nothing and the SDA line remains high.

READ/WRITE BIT
The address frame includes a single bit at the end that informs the slave whether the
master wants to write data to it or receive data from it. If the master wants to send data to the
slave, the read/write bit is a low voltage level. If the master is requesting data from the slave, the
bit is a high voltage level.

THE DATA FRAME

After the master detects the ACK bit from the slave, the first data frame is ready to be
sent.

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 The data frame is always 8 bits long, and sent with the most significant bit first. Each data
frame is immediately followed by an ACK/NACK bit to verify that the frame has been received
successfully. The ACK bit must be received by either the master or the slave (depending on who
is sending the data) before the next data frame can be sent.
After all of the data frames have been sent, the master can send a stop condition to the
slave to halt the transmission. The stop condition is a voltage transition from low to high on the
SDA line after a low to high transition on the SCL line, with the SCL line remaining high.

STEPS OF I2C DATA TRANSMISSION

1. The master sends the start condition to every connected slave by switching the SDA line from
a high voltage level to a low voltage level before switching the SCL line from high to low:

2. The master sends each slave the 7 or 10 bit address of the slave it wants to communicate
with, along with the read/write bit:

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3. Each slave compares the address sent from the master to its own address. If the address
matches, the slave returns an ACK bit by pulling the SDA line low for one bit. If the address from
the master does not match the slave’s own address, the slave leaves the SDA line high.

4. The master sends or receives the data frame:

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5. After each data frame has been transferred, the receiving device returns another ACK bit to
the sender to acknowledge successful receipt of the frame:

6. To stop the data transmission, the master sends a stop condition to the slave by
switching SCL high before switching SDA high:

SINGLE MASTER WITH MULTIPLE SLAVES

Because I2C uses addressing, multiple slaves can be controlled from a single master.
With a 7 bit address, 128 (27) unique address are available. Using 10 bit addresses is
uncommon, but provides 1,024 (210) unique addresses. To connect multiple slaves to a single
master, wire them like this, with 4.7K/10K Ohm pull-up resistors connecting the SDA and SCL
lines to Vcc:

117
MULTIPLE MASTERS WITH MULTIPLE SLAVES
Multiple masters can be connected to a single slave or multiple slaves. The problem with
multiple masters in the same system comes when two masters try to send or receive data at the
same time over the SDA line. To solve this problem, each master needs to detect if the SDA line
is low or high before transmitting a message. If the SDA line is low, this means that another
master has control of the bus, and the master should wait to send the message. If the SDA line is
high, then it’s safe to transmit the message. To connect multiple masters to multiple slaves, use
the following diagram, with 4.7K Ohm pull-up resistors connecting the SDA and SCL lines to Vcc:

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF I2C

There is a lot to I2C that might make it sound complicated compared to other protocols,
but there are some good reasons why you may or may not want to use I2C to connect to a
particular device:

ADVANTAGES
 Only uses two wires
 Supports multiple masters and multiple slaves
 ACK/NACK bit gives confirmation that each frame is transferred successfully
 Hardware is less complicated than with UARTs
 Well known and widely used protocol

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DISADVANTAGES
 Slower data transfer rate than SPI
 The size of the data frame is limited to 8 bits
 More complicated hardware needed to implement than SPI

UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS (USB)

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a set of interface specifications for high speed wired
communication between electronics systems peripherals and devices with or without
PC/computer. The USB was originally developed in 1995 by many of the industry leading
companies like Intel, Compaq, Microsoft, Digital, IBM, and Northern Telecom.

The major goal of USB was to define an external expansion bus to add peripherals to a
PC in easy and simple manner.

USB offers users simple connectivity. It eliminates the mix of different connectors for
different devices like printers, keyboards, mice, and other peripherals. That means USB-bus
allows many peripherals to be connected using a single standardized interface socket. It supports
all kinds of data, from slow mouse inputs to digitized audio and compressed video.

USB also allows hot swapping. The "hot-swapping" means that the devices can be
plugged and unplugged without rebooting the computer or turning off the device. That means,
when plugged in, everything configures automatically. Once the user is finished, they can simply
unplug the cable out; the host will detect its absence and automatically unload the driver. This
makes the USB a plug-and-play interface between a computer and add-on devices.

USB is now the most used interface to connect devices like mouse, keyboards, PDAs,
game-pads and joysticks, scanners, digital cameras, printers, personal media players, and flash
drives to personal computers.

USB sends data in serial mode i.e. the parallel data is serialized before sends and de-
serialized after receiving.

The benefits of USB are low cost, expandability, auto-configuration, hot-plugging and
outstanding performance. It also provides power to the bus, enabling many peripherals to
operate without the added need for an AC power adapter.

Various versions USB:

USB1.0: USB 1.0 is the original release of USB having the capability of transferring
12Mbps, supporting up to 127 devices. This USB 1.0 specification model was introduced in
January 1996.

USB1.1: USB 1.1 came out in September 1998. USB 1.1 is also known as full-speed
USB. This version is similar to the original release of USB; however, there are minor
modifications for the hardware and the specifications. USB version 1.1 supported two speeds, a
full speed mode of 12Mbits/s and a low speed mode of 1.5Mbits/s.

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 USB2.0: Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LSI Corporation, Microsoft, NEC, and Philips jointly led
the initiative to develop a higher data transfer rate than the 1.1 specifications. The USB 2.0
specification was released in April 2000 and was standardized at the end of 2001.
Supporting three speed modes (1.5, 12 and 480 Mbps), USB 2.0 supports low-bandwidth
devices such as keyboards and mice, as well as high-bandwidth ones like high-resolution Web-
cams, scanners, printers and high-capacity storage systems.
USB 2.0, also known as hi-speed USB. This hi-speed USB is capable of supporting a
transfer rate of up to 480 Mbps, compared to 12 Mbps of USB 1.1. That's about 40 times as fast!
Wow!
USB3.0: USB 3.0 is the latest version of USB release. It is also called as Super-Speed
USB having a data transfer rate of 4.8Gbps (600 MB/s). That means it can deliver over 10x the
speed of today's Hi-Speed USB connections.
The USB 3.0 specification was released by Intel and its partners in August 2008.
Products using the 3.0 specifications are come out in 2010.
The USB "tiered star" topology:
The USB system is made up of a host, multiple numbers of USB ports, and multiple
peripheral devices connected in a tiered-star topology.
The host is the USB system's master, and as such, controls and schedules all
communications activities. Peripherals, the devices controlled by USB, are slaves responding to
commands from the host. USB devices are linked in series through hubs. There always exists
one hub known as the root hub, which is built in to the host controller.

Fig: The USB "tiered star" topology

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USB connectors:

Connecting a USB device to a computer is very simple -- you find the USB connector on
the back of your machine and plug the USB connector into it. If it is a new device, the operating
system auto-detects it and asks for the driver disk. If the device has already been installed, the
computer activates it and starts talking to it.

The USB standard specifies two kinds of cables and connectors.

Fig: USB Type A & B Connectors

The USB standard uses "A" and "B" connectors mainly to avoid confusion:
1. "A" connectors head "upstream" toward the computer.
2. "B" connectors head "downstream" and connect to individual devices.
By using different connectors on the upstream and downstream end, it is impossible to
install a cable incorrectly, because the two types are physically different.

Pin No Signal Color of the cable

1 +5V power Red
2 - Data White / Yellow
3 +Data Green / Blue
4 Ground Black/Brown
Table: USB pin connections
USB can support 4 data transfer types or transfer modes.
1. Control
2. Isochronous
3. Bulk
4. Interrupt
Control transfers exchange configuration, setup and command information between the
device and host. The host can also send commands or query parameters with control packets.
Isochronous transfer is used by time critical, streaming device such as speakers and
video cameras. It is time sensitive information so, within limitations, it has guaranteed access to
the USB bus.
Bulk transfer is used by devices like printers & scanners, which receives data in one big
packet.
Interrupt transfer is used by peripherals exchanging small amounts of data that need
immediate attention.

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 All USB data is sent serially. USB data transfer is essentially in the form of packets of
data, sent back and forth between the host and peripheral devices. Initially all packets are sent
from the host, via the root hub and possibly more hubs, to devices.
Each USB data transfer consists of a…
1. Token packet (Header defining what it expects to follow)
2. Optional Data Packet (Containing the payload)
3. Status Packet (Used to acknowledge transactions and to provide a means of error
correction).

Implementing and Programming UART:

TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller has got eight UART ports. They are named as
UART0-UART7. In the TI Launchpad, the UART0 port is connected to the ICDI (In-Circuit
Debug Interface). ICDI is further connected to USB port. Users can use UART0 for flash
programming, debugging using JTAG. The UART features of TI Tiva TM4C123GH6PM
microcontroller is: -
 UART‟s have programmable baud-rate generator allowing speeds up to 5 Mbps for
regular speed and 10 Mbps for high speed.
 Separate 16x8 transmit (TX) and receive (RX) FIFOs to reduce CPU interrupt service
loading with programmable FIFO length
 Standard asynchronous communication bits for start, stop, and parity, Line-break
generation and detection
 Fully programmable serial interface characteristics
o 5, 6, 7, or 8 data bits
o Even, odd, stick, or no-parity bit generation/detection
o 1 or 2 stop bit generation
 IrDA serial-IR (SIR) encoder/decoder providing
o Programmable use of IrDA Serial Infrared (SIR) or UART input/output
o Support of IrDA SIR encoder/decoder functions for data rates up to 115.2 Kbps
half duplex
o Support of normal 3/16 and low-power (1.41-2.23 μs) bit durations
o Programmable internal clock generator enabling division of reference clock by 1
to 256 for low-power mode bit duration
 Support for communication with ISO 7816 smart cards
 Modem flow control (on UART1)
 EIA-485 9-bit support
 Standard FIFO-level and End-of-Transmission interrupts
 Efficient transfers using Micro Direct Memory Access Controller (μDMA)
o Separate channels for transmit and receive
o Receive single request asserted when data is in the FIFO; burst request asserted at
programmed FIFO level Transmit single request asserted when there is space in
the FIFO; burst request asserted at programmed FIFO level.

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UART Register Map
TI Tiva TM4C123GH6PM UART has got several Special Function Registers (SFR‟s)
which needs to program with appropriate values to achieve required UART functionality. In
this section, UART0 is taken as example in which virtual connection is possible on TI Tiva
launch pad.

Figure: Simplified block diagram of UART

Baud Rate Generators: The SFR‟s used in setting the baud rate are UART Integer
Baud-Rate Divisor (UARTIBRD) and UART Fractional Baud-Rate Divisor (UARTFBRD).
The block diagram of the registers is given below:

Figure: Baud Rate Registers

The physical addresses for these UART baud rate registers are: 0x4000:C000+0x024
(UARTIBRD) and 0x4000:C000+0x028 (UARTFBRD). Only lower 16 bit are used in
UARTIBRD and lower 6-bits are used in UARTFBRD. So it comes to total of 22 bits (16-bit
integer + 6 bit of fraction). To reduce the error rate and use the standard baud rate supported
by the terminal programs it is required to use both the registers when we program for the
baud rate. The standard baud rates are: 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 57600 and 115200.

Baud rate can be calculated using the below formula:

Desired Baud Rate = SysClk / (16 × ClkDiv)

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 Where the SysClk is the working system clock connected to the UART and ClkDiv is
the value programmed into baud rate registers.

The baud-rate divisor (BRD) has the following relationship to the system clock,
where BRDI is the integer part of the BRD and BRDF is the fractional part, separated by a
decimal place.

BRD = BRDI + BRDF = UARTSysClk / (ClkDiv * Baud Rate)

UARTSysClk is the system clock connected to the UART, and ClkDiv is 16 (if HSE
in UARTCTL is clear) or 8 (if HSE is set).
Alternatively, the UART may be clocked from the internal precision oscillator
(PIOSC), independent of the system clock selection. This will allow the UART clock to be
programmed independently of the system clock PLL settings.

TI Tiva Launchpad system clock is 16 MHz so desired Baud Rate can be calculated as:

Baud Rate = 16MHz / (16 × ClkDiv) = 1MHz / ClkDiv

The ClkDiv value includes both integer and fractional values loaded into UARTIBRD
and UARTFBRD registers. The integer part is easy to calculate and fraction part requires
manipulations based on trial and error.

Example:
System clock of TI Tiva Launchpad is16 MHz 16MHz is divided by 16 and it is fed
into UART. So UART operates at 1MHz frequency. So ClkDiv = 1MHz.
To generate a baud rate of 4800: 1MHz/4800 = 208.33
(a) 1MHz/4800 = 208.33, UARTIBRD=208 & UARTFBRD = (0.33×64) + 0.5 = 21.83 =21
(b) 1MHz/9600 = 104.166666, UARTIBRD = 104 & UARTFBRD = (0.16666×64) +0.5=11
(c) 1MHz/57600 = 17.361, UARTIBRD = 17 and UARTFBRD = (0.361 × 64) + 0.5 =23
(d) 1MHz/115200 = 8.680, UARTIBRD = 8 and UARTFBRD = (0.680 × 64) +0.5=44
Serial IR (SIR):
UART includes an IrDA (Infrared) serial IR encoder-decoder block. SIR block
converts the data between UART and half-duplex serial SIR interface. The SIR block
provides a digitally encoded output and decoded input to UART. SIR block uses UnTx and
UnRx pins for SIR interface. These pins are connected to IrDA SIR physical layer link. SIR
block supports half-duplex communication. The IrDA SIR physical layer specifies a
minimum 10-ms delay between transmission and reception. The SIR block has two modes of
operation normal mode and low power mode.

ISO 7816 Support: UART support ISO 7816 smartcard communication. The UnTx signal is
used as a bit clock and the UnRx signal is used as the half-duplex communication line
connected to the smartcard. Any GPIO signal can be used to generate the reset signal to the
smartcard.

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UART Control Register (UARTCTL):
This is a 32-bit register. The most important bits are RXE, TXE, HSE, and UARTEN.

Figure: UART Control Register (UARTCTL)

 RXE (Receive enable): This bit should be enabled to receive data.
 TXE (Transmit Enable): This bit should be enabled to transmit data.
 HSE (High Speed enable): This bit is used to set the baud rate. By default the system
clock is divided by 16 before it is fed to the UART. The user can program HSE =1, to
make system clock divide by 8.
 UARTEN (UART enable): This bit allows user to enable or disable the UART. During
the initialization of the UART registers, this is disabled. To disable UART under any
circumstances, this bit is used.
 SIREN (SIR Enable): IrDA SIR Block is enabled. UART will transmit and receive data
using SIR protocol.
 SIRLP (SIR Low Power Mode): This bit selects the IrDA encoding mode: Normal
mode or low power mode.
 SMART (ISO 7816 Smart Card support): The UART operates in Smart Card mode
when SMART = 1. UART does not support automatic retransmission on parity errors.
If a parity error is detected on transmission, all further transmit operations are aborted
and software must handle retransmission of the affected byte or message.
 LBE (Loop Back Enable): The UnTx path is fed through the UnRx path when LBE =1.
 RTSEN (Enable Request to send): RTS hardware flow control is enabled. Data is only
requested when receive FIFO has available entries.
 RTS (Request to send): When RTSEN is clear, the status of this bit is reflected on the
U1RTS signal. If RTSEN is set, this bit is ignored on a write and should be ignored on
read.

UART Line Control Register (UARTLCTH)

This register is used to set the length of data. The bits per character in a frame and
number of stop bits are also decided.

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  STP2 (Stop bit2): The stop bits can be 1 or 2. The default is 1 stop bit at the end of
each frame. If the receiving device is slow, we can use 2 stop bits by making the
STP2=1.
 FEN (FIFO Enable): UART has an internal 16-byte FIFO (first in first out) buffer to
store data for transmission to keep the CPU getting interrupted for the reception and
transmission of every byte. Enabling FEN bit, we can write up to16 bytes of data
block into its transmission FIFO buffer and let transfer happen one byte at a time.
There is also a separate 16 byte FIFO for the receiver to buffer the incoming data.
Upon Reset, the default for FIFO buffer size is 1 byte.
 WLEN (Word Length): The number of bits per character data in each frame can be 5,
6, 7, or 8. we use 8 bits for each character data frame. Default world length mode is 5.
 BRK (Send Break): A Low level is continually output on the UnTx signal, after
completing transmission of the current character. For the proper execution of the
break command, software must set this bit for at least two frames (character periods).
 PEN (Parity Enable): Parity is enabled and parity bit is added to the data frame by
making PEN = 1. Parity checking is also enabled.
 EPS (Even Parity Select): Odd parity is performed, which checks for an odd number
of 1s when EPS = 0. Even parity generation and checking is performed during
transmission and reception, which checks for an even number of 1s in data and parity
bits when EPS = 1.
UART Data Register (UARTDR):

Figure: UART Date Register (UARTDR)

Data should be placed in data register before transmission. Only lower 8 bits are used.
In a similar way, the received byte should be read and saved in memory before it gets
overwrite by next byte. During reception, we use other four bits (8, 9, 10 and 11) to detect
error, parity etc. Another set of registers are used to check the source of error.
(UARTRSR/UARTRCR)

 OE: Overrun error (OE = 0: No data is lost).

 BE: Break error
 PE: Parity error
 FE: Framing error.

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UART Flag Register (UARTFR):
The UART Flag Register holds one byte of data when FIFO buffer is disabled.

Figure: UART Flag Register (UARTFR)

 TXFE (TX FIFO Empty): Transmitter loads one byte for transmission from the FIFO
buffer.
 When FIFO becomes empty, the TXFE is raised. The transmitter then frames the byte
and sends it out via TxD pin bit by bit serially.
 RXFF (RX FIFO Full): When a byte of data is received, byte is placed in Data
register and RXFF (RX FIFO full) flag bit is raised after receiving the complete byte.
 TXFF (TX FIFOI Full): When the transmitter is not busy, it loads one byte from the
FIFO buffer and the FIFO is not full anymore and the TXFF is lowered. We can
monitor TXFF flag and upon going LOW we can write another byte to the Data
register.

UART Transmission
Step to perform UART Transmission:

 Program the RCGCUART register to get clock on UART0.

 Program the RCGCGPIO register to get the clock for PORTA.
 Program UARTCTL to disable UART0.
 Program the integer part and fractional part into baud rate registers: UARTIBRD and
UARTFBRD for UART0.
 Program UARTCC to select the system clock as UART clock.
 Set the bits in UARTLCRH register for 1 stop bit, no interrupt, no FIFO use, and for 8-
bit date size (for UART 0).
 Program TxE and RxE in UARTCTL to enable transmitter and receiver.
 Make PA0 and PA1 pins to use as digital pins.
 Configure PA0 and PA1 pins for UART.
 Loop the program for wait on TxD output. Monitor the TXFF flag bit and when it goes
low, write a data into data register.
UART Reception
Step by Step Execution of UART Reception:
 Program the RCGCUART register to get clock on UART0.
 Program the RCGCGPIO register to get the clock for PORTA.
 Program UARTCTL to disable UART0.

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  Program the integer part and fractional part into baud rate registers: UARTIBRD and
UARTFBRD for UART0.
 Program UARTCC to select the system clock as UART clock.
 Set the bits in UARTLCRH register for 1 stop bit, no interrupt, no FIFO use, and for 8
-bit data size (for UART 0).
 Program TxE and RxE in UARTCTL to enable transmitter and receiver.
 Make PA0 and PA1 pins to use as digital pins.
 Configure PA0 and PA1 pins for UART.
 Loop the program for wait on TxD output. Monitor the TXFF flag bit and when it
goes low, write a data into data register.
 Monitor the RXFE flag bit in UART Flag register and when it goes LOW read the
received byte from Data register and save before it gets overwrite.
Basic UART programing
Example 1:
Program to send the characters "HELLO" to HyperTerminal of PC
#include <stdint.h>
#include "tm4c123gh6pm.h"
void UART0Tx(char c);
void delayMs(int n);
int main(void)
SYSCTL->RCGCUART |= 1; /* enable clock supply to UART*/
SYSCTL->RCGCGPIO |= 1; /* enable clock supply to PORTA */
/* UART0 initialization */
UART0->CTL = 0; /* disable UART0 */
UART0->IBRD = 104; /* 9600 baud rate
UART0->FBRD = 11; /* fractional portion*/
UART0->CC = 0; /* configured to system clock */
UART0->LCRH = 0x60; /* 8-bit, no parity, 1-stop bit, no FIFO */
UART0->CTL = 0x301; /* configure UART0 and TXE, RXE*/
/* UART0 TX0 and RX0 use PA0 and PA1. Set them up. */
GPIOA->DEN = 0x03; /* Make PA0 and PA1 as digital */
GPIOA->AFSEL = 0x03; /* Use PA0, PA1 alternate function */
GPIOA->PCTL = 0x11; /* configure PA0 and PA1 for UART */
delayMs(1); /* wait for output line to stabilize */
for(;;)
{
UART0Tx('H');
UART0Tx('E');
UART0Tx('L');
UART0Tx('L ');
UART0Tx('O');
}
}
/* UART0 Transmit */
void UART0Tx(char c)
{while((UART0->FR & 0x20) != 0); /* wait until Tx buffer not full */
UART0->DR = c; /* before giving it another byte */
}

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Example 2:
Program to receive data serially via UART0
#include <stdint.h>
#include "tm4c123gh6pm.h"
char UART0Rx(void);
void delayMs(int n);
int main(void)
{
char c;
SYSCTL->RCGCUART |= 1; /* enable clock supply to UART*/
SYSCTL->RCGCGPIO |= 1; /* enable clock supply to PORTA */
/* UART0 initialization */
UART0->CTL = 0; /* disable UART0 */
UART0->IBRD = 104; /* 9600 baud rate */
UART0->FBRD = 11; /* fractional portion*/
UART0->CC = 0; /* configured to system clock */
UART0->LCRH = 0x60; /* 8-bit, no parity, 1-stop bit, no FIFO */
UART0->CTL = 0x301; /* configure UART0 and TXE, RXE */
/* UART0 TX0 and RX0 use PA0 and PA1. Set them up. */
GPIOA->DEN = 0x03; /* Make PA0 and PA1 as digital */
GPIOA->AFSEL = 0x03; /* Use PA0, PA1 alternate function */
GPIOA->PCTL = 0x11; /* configure PA0 and PA1 for UART */
for(;;)
{
c = UART0Rx(); /* get a character from UART */
}
}
/* UART0 Receive */
char UART0Rx(void)
{
char c;
while((UART0->FR & 0x10) != 0); /* wait until the buffer is not empty */
c = UART0->DR; /* read the received data */
return c; /* and return it */
}

Implementing and Programming I2C:

The TM4C123GH6PM controller includes four I2C modules with the following features:
 Devices on the I2C bus can be designated as either a master or a slave
 Supports both transmitting and receiving data as either a master or a slave
 Supports simultaneous master and slave operation
 Four I2C modes
o Master transmit
o Master receive
o Slave transmit
o Slave receive

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  Four transmission speeds:
o Standard (100 Kbps)
o Fast-mode (400 Kbps)
o Fast-mode plus (1 Mbps)
o High-speed mode (3.33 Mbps)
 Clock low timeout interrupt
 Dual slave address capability
 Glitch suppression
 Master and slave interrupt generation
 Master generates interrupts when a transmit or receive operation completes (or aborts
due to an error)
 Slave generates interrupts when data has been transferred or requested by a master or
when a START or STOP condition is detected
 Master with arbitration and clock synchronization, multi-master support, and 7-bit
addressing mode.
I2C Network:
There are four on chip IIC modules in this Tiva microcontroller. The base address of
each IIC module is shown in below table:

2
Figure: I C Networking using Tiva microcontroller
Clock should be enabled to IIC module and system control register (SYSCTL)
RCGCI2C needs to be programmed. To enable the clock SYSCTL ->RCGCI2C | = 0x0F will
enable clock to all four modules

Figure: RunMode Clock Gating Control Register (RCGCI2C)

Clock should be enabled to IIC module and system control register (SYSCTL) RCGCI2C
needs to be programmed.

130
To enable the clock SYSCTL ->RCGCI2C | = 0x0F will enable clock to all four modules.
Clock Speed: I2CMTPR (I2C Master Timer Period) register is programmed to set the clock
frequency for SCL.

Figure: I2C Master Time Period Register

Table: RCG12C Register Description

The formula used to set the clock speed is given below:

SCL_PERIOD = 2 x (1+TPR) x (SCL_LP+ SCL_HP) x CLK_PRD
Where
CLK_PRD: System Clock period
SCL_LP: SCL low period and it is fixed at 6.
SCL_HP: SCL High period and it is fixed at 4.
Finally, the above equation can be written as:
SCL_PERIOD = (20 x (1+TPR)/ System clock frequency
The TPR can be calculated as:
TPR = ((System clock frequency x SCL_PERIOD)/20) - 1)
TPR = (System Clock frequency)/ (20 x I2C clock) - 1
With System clock frequency of 20MHz and with I2C clock is 333 KHz, we get TPR (Timer
period) = 2.
TPR value to generate Standard, Fast and Fast mode plus SCL frequencies is given in below
table:
2
Table: TPR Values for I C modes

131
The HS bit in the I2CMTPR register needs to be set for the TPR value to be used in High-
Speed mode.
Table: TPR Values for High-Speed Mode

I2CMCR (I2C Master Configuration register) is used to configure microcontroller as master

or slave. The description of I2CMCR is below:

Figure: I2C Master Configuration Register

Table: I2CMCR Register Description

Slave Address:
In a master device, the slave address is stored in I2CMSA. Addresses in I2C
communication is 7-bits. I2CMSA stores D7 to D1 bits and LSB of D0 indicate master is
receiver of transmitter.

Figure: I2C Master Slave Address Register

Data Register:
In transmit mode, a byte of data will be placed in I2CMDR (I2C Master Data
Register) for transmission.

Figure: I2C Master Data Register

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Control and Status Flag Register:
The I2CMCS (I2C Master Control/Status) register is programmed for both control
and status. I2CMCS register configures the I2C controller operation. The status whether a
byte has been transmitted. That is, transmission buffer is empty and ready to transmit the next
byte. After writing a data into I2C Data register and the slave address into I2C Master Slave
address register, we can configure I2CMCS register for the I2C to start a data transmission
from Master to slave device. Writing 0x07 to I2CMCS register has all the three of STOP = 1,
RUN = 1, and START = 1 in it. To check the status of transmission, we poll the BUSBSY bit
of I2CMCS register. BUSBSY bit goes low after transmission complete. Program should also
check the ERROR bit to confirm that no error has occurred during transmission. For any error
in transmission, detected by transmitter or raised by slave, the ADRACK and DATACK will
be set. The bit ARBLST should be polled, to confirm transmitter has got access to bus and
not lost arbitration.

Figure: I2C Master Control/Status Register

Table: I2C MCS Register Description

133
Configuring GPIO for I2C Network:
GPIO pins are configured for I2C as follows:
 Enable the clock to GPIO pins by using system control register RCGCGPIO.
 Set the GPIO AFSEL (GPIO alternate function) for I2C pins.
 Enable digital pins in the GPIODEN register.
 I2C signals are assigned to specific pins using GPIOCTL register.

(a) (b)
Figure: Data transmission using (a) Master Single Transmit, (b) Single Master Receive

134
Implementing and Programming SPI:
Serial peripheral interface (SPI) is a serial communication interface originally
designed by Motorola in late eighties. SPI and I2C came into existence almost at the same
time. Most of the modern day microcontrollers will support SPI protocol. Both SPI and I2C
offer good support for communication with low-speed devices, but SPI is better suited to
applications in which devices transfer data streams. Some devices use the full-duplex mode to
implement an efficient, swift data stream for applications such as digital audio, digital signal
processing, or telecommunications channels, but most off-the-shelf chips stick to half-duplex
request/response protocols.
SPI is used to talk to a variety of peripherals, such a
 Sensors: temperature, pressure, ADC, touchscreens, video game controllers
 Control devices: audio codecs, digital potentiometers, DAC
 Camera lenses: Canon EF lens mount
 Memory: flash and EEPROM
 Real-time clocks
 LCD, sometimes even for managing image data
 Any MMC or SD card
Description: SPI is a synchronous serial communication protocol like I2C, where master
generates clock and data transfer between master and slave happens with respect to clock.
Both master and slave devices will have shift registers connected to input (MISO for master
and MOSI for slave) and output (MOSI for master and MISO for slave) as shown in figure.

Figure: Serial Peripheral Interface

Communication between the devices will start after CS (chip select) pin will go low.
(CS is an active low pin). In SPI, the 8-bit shift registers are used. After passing of 8 clock
pulses, the contents of two shift registers are interchanged. SPI is full duplex communication.
In SPI protocol both master and slaves use the same clock for communication When
CPOL= 0 the idle value of the clock is zero while at CPOL=1 the idle value of the clock is
one.

135
 CPHA=0 means sample data on the leading (first) clock edge, while CPHA=1 means
sample data on the trailing (second) clock edge. The idle value of the clock is zero the leading
clock edge is a positive edge but if the idle value of the clock is one, the leading clock edge is
a negative edge.
In SPI protocol both master and slaves use the same clock for communication When
CPOL= 0 the idle value of the clock is zero while at CPOL=1 the idle value of the clock is
one.
CPHA=0 means sample data on the leading (first) clock edge, while CPHA=1 means
sample data on the trailing (second) clock edge. The idle value of the clock is zero the leading
clock edge is a positive edge but if the idle value of the clock is one, the leading clock edge is
a negative edge.

Figure: SPI Timing Diagram

Table: SPI Modes

SPI in Tiva Microcontroller:

The TM4C123GH6PM microcontroller includes four Synchronous Serial Interface
(SSI) modules. Each SSI module is a master or slave interface for synchronous serial
communication with peripheral devices that have Freescale SPI, MICROWIRE, or Texas
Instruments synchronous serial interfaces.
The TM4C123GH6PM SSI modules have the following features:
 Programmable interface operation for Freescale SPI, MICROWIRE, or Texas
Instruments synchronous serial interfaces
 Master or slave operation
 Programmable clock bit rate and prescaler

136
  Separate transmit and receive FIFOs, each 16 bits wide and 8 locations deep
 Programmable data frame size from 4 to 16 bits
 Internal loopback test mode for diagnostic/debug testing
 Standard FIFO-based interrupts and End-of-Transmission interrupt
 Efficient transfers using Micro Direct Memory Access Controller (μDMA)
 Separate channels for transmit and receive
 Receive single request asserted when data is in the FIFO; burst request asserted when
FIFO contains 4 entries
 Transmit single request asserted when there is space in the FIFO; burst request
asserted
 When four or more entries are available to be written in the FIFO.
Most SSI signals are alternate functions for some GPIO signals and default to be
GPIO signals at reset. The exceptions to this rule are the SSI0Clk, SSI0Fss, SSI0Rx, and
SSI0Tx pins, which default to the SSI function. The AFSEL bit in the GPIO Alternate
Function Select (GPIOAFSEL) register should be set to choose the SSI function.
Each data frame is between 4 and 16 bits long depending on the size of data
programmed and is transmitted starting with the MSB. There are three basic frame types that
can be selected by programming the FRF bit in the SSICR0 register:
 Texas Instruments synchronous serial
 Freescale SPI
 Microwire
For all three formats, the serial clock (SSInClk) is held inactive while the SSI is idle,
and SSInClk transitions at the programmed frequency only during active transmission or
reception of data. The idle state of SSInClk is utilized to provide a receive timeout indication
that occurs when the receive FIFO still contains data after a timeout period.
For Freescale SPI and MICROWIRE frame formats, the serial frame (SSInFss) pin is
active Low, and is asserted (pulled down) during the entire transmission of the frame.
We focus on the SPI features of SSI module. This microcontroller supports four SSI
modules. The SSI modules are located at the following base addresses:
Table: SPI Modules base address

Clock to SSI: RCGCSSI register is used to enable the clock to SSI modules. We need
to write RCGSSI = 0x0F to enable the clock to all SSI modules.

Figure: Synchronous Serial Interface Run Mode Clock Gating Control CRCG (SSI) Register

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Configuring the SSI:
SSICR0 (SSI control register 0) is used to configure the SSI. The generic SPI is used
to transfer the byte size of data, the SSI in Tiva microcontroller allows transfer of data
between 4 bits to 16bits.

Figure: SSI Control O Register

Table: SSICRO Register Description

Bit Rate:
SSI module clock source can be either from System Clock or PIOSC (Precision
Internal Oscillator). The selected frequency is fed to pre-scaler before it is used by the Bit
Rate circuitry. The CPSDVSR (CPS Divisor) value comes from the pre-scaler divisor
register. The lower 8 bits of SSICPSR (SSI Clock Prescale) register are used to divide the
CPU clock before it is fed to the Bit Rate circuitry. Only even values can be used for the pre-
scaler since the D0 must be 0. For the pre-scaler register, the lowest value is 2 and the highest
is 254.
The SSICR0 (SSI Control register 0) allows the Bit Rate selection among other
things. The output of clock pre-scaler circuitry is divided by 1 + SCR and then used as the
SSI baud rate clock. The value of SCR can be from 0 to 255. The below formula is used to
calculate the bit rate.
Bit Rate (BR): BR=SysClk/(CPSDVSR × (1 + SCR))

Figure: SSI Clock Prescaler Register

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Example:
For a Bit Rate=50 KHz and SCR=03 in SSICR0 register.
The pre-scaler register value for a given system clock frequency of 16MHz, the BR
can be calculated using above formula as:
BR = SysClk / (CPSDVSR × (1 + SCR))
50 KHz = 16 MHz / (X × (1 + 3).
The pre-scaler value is 0x50 in Hex.
SPI module can act like slave or a master. The value in a MS bit in SSI control
register 1 (SSICR1) decide the microcontroller as master or slave. SSE bit in the SSICR1
register is used to enable/ disable the SPI.

Figure: SSI Control 1 Register

Data Register:
The SSIDR is used for both as transmitter and receiver buffer. In SPI handling 8-bit
data, will be placed into the lower 8-bits of the register and the rest of the register are unused.
In the receive mode, the lower 8-bit holds the received data.

Figure: SSI Data Register

Status Flag Register: SSISR is used to monitor transmitter/receiver buffer is empty.

Figure: SSI Status Register

Table: SSI Status Register Description

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SPI data Transmission:
To perform SPI data transmission, follow the steps given below:
 Enable the clock to SPI module in system control register RCGCSSI.
 Before initialization, disable the SSI via bit 1 of SSICR1 register.
 Set the Bit Rate with the SSICPSR prescaler and SSICR0 control registers.
 Select the SPI mode, phase, polarity, and data width in SSICR0 control register.
 Set the master mode in SSISCR1 register.
 Enable SSI using SSICR1 register.
 Assert slave select signal.
 Wait until the TNF flag in SSISR goes high, then load a byte of data into SSIDR.
 Wait until transmit is complete that is, transmit FIFO empty and SSI not busy.
 De-assert the slave signal
NVIC interrupt for SSI:
Interrupt handler can be used for transmission and reception of data. By enabling the
interrupt in SSIIM (SSI Interrupt mask) register, NVIC interrupt controller will enable
interrupts from SSI and execute the corresponding interrupt service routine. All SSI interrupts
are masked upon reset.

Figure: SSI Interrupt Mask Register

Table: SSI Interrupt Mask Register Description

/* Program for Tiva Microcontroller to use SSI1 (SPI) to transmit A to Z characters*/

#include "TM4C123GH6PM.h"
void init_SSI1(void);
void SSI1Write(unsigned char data);
int main(void)
{
unsigned char i;
init_SSI1(); for(;;)
{for (i = 'A'; i <= 'Z'; i++)
{SSI1Write(i); /* write a character */
}

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void SSI1Write(unsigned char data)
{
GPIOF->DATA &= ~0x04; /* assert SS low */
while((SSI1->SR & 2) == 0); /* wait until FIFO not full */
while(SSI1->SR & 0x10); /* wait until transmit complete */
GPIOF->DATA |= 0x04; /* keep SS idle high */
void init_SSI1(void)
{
SYSCTL->RCGCSSI |= 2; /* enable clock to SSI1 */
/* configure PORTD 3, 1 for SSI1 clock and Tx */
GPIOD->DEN |= 0x09; /* and make them digital */
GPIOD->AFSEL |= 0x09; /* enable alternate function */
GPIOD->PCTL &= ~0x0000F00F; /* assign pins to SSI1 */
GPIOD->PCTL |= 0x00002002; /* assign pins to SSI1 */
/* configure PORTF 2 for slave select */
GPIOF->DEN |= 0x04; /* make the pin digital */
GPIOF->DIR |= 0x04; /* make the pin output */
GPIOF->DATA |= 0x04; /* keep SS idle high */
/* SPI Master, POL = 0, PHA = 0, clock = 4 MHz, 16 bit data */
SSI1->CR1 = 0; /* disable SSI and make it master */
SSI1->CC = 0; /* use system clock */
SSI1->CPSR = 2; /* prescaler divided by 2 */
SSI1->CR1 |= 2; /* enable SSI1 */
}
void SystemInit(void)
{
SCB->CPACR |= 0x00f00000;
}

Case Study: Tiva based embedded system application using the

interface protocols for communication with external devices
“Sensor Hub BoosterPack”

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 Weather broadcasting system require some smart technique to monitor the weather
conditions of different places. It is useful for the meteorological department for the detection
of the environmental condition with the help of a balloon. In this case study we are using four
sensors Accelerometer, gyroscope, temperature sensor and pressure sensor. The Tiva booster
pack with various sensors is mounted on the balloon and accelerometer used for the detection
of acceleration of the balloon and gyro scope is used for the position detection of the balloon
and pressure and temperature sensor senses pressure and temperature of the environment
respectively. These all gathered information sent to the ground station with the help of
satellite communication system installed at the balloon and the meteorological department‟s
ground station. The collected information is used for the public weather broadcasting.

Figure: Flowchart for Interfacing TIVA with Sensor Hub Booster Pack

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Embedded Networking Fundamentals:
Introduction:
Embedded networking technologies such as ZigBee, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc. are
key elements in designing internet enabled applications. For example, in a residential set-up,
these enable control of all devices remotely, even if there is no one physically present in the
house. Such a „Smart home’ allows the owner to monitor and control all smart equipment
including power controls, security devices such as surveillance camera, etc. remotely. That is
possible by using Wi-Fi technology, gateway solutions that provide connection to Cloud and
of course the Internet to access the devices. Other typical application areas are monitoring,
smart Grid, Smart Transport, smart plug, wearable devices, health monitoring etc.

Figure: Embedded Network

This chapter covers wireless sensor networks as well as different wireless protocols,
which provide connectivity between smart devices and gateway solutions. Readers will also
learn about the CC3100 wireless module and how its architecture that provides wireless
connectivity can be interfaced with TIVA C Series. The chapter also discusses the
configuration of this module in access point mode with the TIVA Launchpad for use in
typical IoT applications.

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 Microcontrollers are used to design intelligent embedded systems such as
smartphones, netbooks, digital TVs, mp3 players, smart-watches, smart-sensors, etc. These
smart things can be connected together to form an embedded network that imparts
intelligence to bigger things like homes, buildings, fields, forests and cities. The above figure
shows different sensors and systems involved in a typical smart-home application. An
embedded network of smart things like automatic home appliances, lights, door sensors,
CCTV cameras, refrigerators, etc. can provide smart-home users with more convenient and
high-quality living experience.

Figure: Embedded Network for Smart Home Application

IoT Overview and Architecture:

Communication between computers or embedded devices in a network involves
exchanging useful messages over a medium like air, telephone line, Ethernet, etc. Each
device must have an address or ID using which, it can be uniquely identified in the network.
The devices must follow some rules while communicating with each other, so that messages
are exchanged in a proper manner. IP (Internet Protocol) provides a set of unique addresses to
the devices, whereas TCP (Transport Control Protocol) describes a set of rules to be followed
to exchange messages in a proper way.

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 In the smart home application shown in the below figure TCP/IP protocol can be used
over Ethernet to provide Internet connectivity to the outside world. As shown in figure, this
will enable the user to monitor or control the smart home functions from anywhere in the
world using a PC, laptop or a smartphone.

Figure: Smart Home Architecture with TCP/IP connectivity to the Internet

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6):
IPv6 is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications
protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and
routes traffic across the Internet.
IPv6 advantages for IoT:
 Adoption: The Internet Protocol is a must and a requirement for any Internet
connectivity. It is the addressing scheme for any data transfer on the web.
 Scalability: IPv6 offers a highly scalable address scheme. The present scheme of
Internet Governance provides at most 2 x 1019 unique, globally routable, addresses.
 Solving the NAT barrier: Due to the limits of the IPv4 address space, the current
Internet had to adopt a stopgap solution to face its unplanned expansion: the Network
Address Translation(NAT). It enables several users and devices to share the same
public IP address. The NAT users are borrowing and sharing IP addresses with others.
While this technique allows single stakeholders to mount large applications, it
becomes completely unmanageable if the same end-points are to be used by many
different stakeholders; this would occur in an IoT deployment where the same sensors
are to be used by multiple, independent, stakeholders. Secondly the mechanism
cannot be used to access specific end-points from the Internet.

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  Multi-Stakeholder Support: IPv6 provides for end devices to have multiple addresses
and an even more distributed routing mechanism than the IPv4 Internet. This allows
different stakeholders to assign IoT end-device addresses that are consistent with their
own application and network practices. Thus multiple stakeholders can deploy their
own applications, sharing a common sensor/actuation infrastructure, without
impacting the technical operation or governance of the Internet.
Internet of Things (IOT):
Klevin Ashton introduced the term “Internet of Things” (IOT), to the world of
technology in 1999. Since then, IoT has generated a lot of interest, and it is expected that the
number of „things‟ connected to IoT will grow from 20 billion things in 2015 to an estimated
200 billion by 2020. It refers to a scenario in which all the real-life things (including objects,
people and animals) are connected to internet, and can transfer data over it preferably to a
cloud. This data can then be used by businesses and the people, to create a world of new
possibilities and to benefit from it. Fig. 5.7 shows the three main components of IoT i.e.
things, data (cloud) and the people. For e.g. a smart refrigerator can sense the quantity of
items inside it, and then automatically generate a shopping list to be ordered on-line. This list
is put by the smart refrigerator on the cloud, where the best deals are offered for online
purchase.

Figure: Main components of IoT

146
 IOT is considered as a scenario of accessing any information from anywhere and
accessible to everyone. This is described as follows:
Anything: Eventually, any device, appliance or entity will be seamlessly connected to the
Internet. Connectivity will not be the main feature of the device, but will extend the device’s
capabilities.
Anywhere: Any conceived wireless connectivity framework should be abstract enough to
run from any location – both geographically and from a network topology perspective. The
former refers to Internet-based ubiquity; the latter, refers to the ability to clone the framework
into intranet environments where Internet access is limited or undesired. Acknowledging the
structure of the Internet beyond the public domain is important to enable the expansion of the
IoT paradigm.
Anyone: Currently, not all things are connected to the IoT. But an IoT ecosystem that is easy
to use and secure is not that far away. This will make the IoT accessible to anyone. Anyone
will be able to connect their product to the Internet, and also customize it to their personal
preferences.
Applications of IOT:
With the industry’s broadest IoT-ready portfolio of wired and wireless connectivity
technologies, microcontrollers, processors, sensors and analog signal chain and power
solutions, TI offers cloud ready system solutions. From high-performance home, industrial
and automotive applications to battery-powered wearable and portable electronics or energy-
harvested wireless sensor nodes, TI makes developing applications easier with hardware,
software, tools and support to get anything connected as an IoT device.
In automotive appliances, IoT is mainly used for infotainment purposes such as
connecting between the phones and the speakers of the car, activating the engine through
voice control etc.
The IoT paradigm discussed may be encountered in a wide variety of venues that span
across various activity circles throughout the day using different kinds of devices. In the
personal area network we encounter wearable devices for entertainment and location
tracking. For example, it can be a Bluetooth headset or a GPS tracker. These devices facilitate
the user to help enhance their health and wellness, and to gather information around the user.
At home we are surrounded with an ever-growing number of appliances, multimedia devices
and other consumer gadgets.

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 In home automation systems, IoT applications include monitoring and controlling the
devices inside a home in an intelligent way. They include lighting and temperature control
among the connected appliances for effective use of energy.
While on-the-go, we use private or public transportation vehicles and infrastructure to
improve our mobility time utilization. In industries, sensors might be introduced for
production efficiency, maintenance and failure management. And at a metropolitan level
smart building management systems include smart cities equipped with smart city lights,
residential e-meters, surveillance cameras for traffic control, pipeline leak detection etc.
Healthcare IoT applications include remote monitoring of patients for example heart rate,
blood pressure level etc.
Architecture of IOT:
The IoT players: We need to get a wider view of the IoT playground. To do that, the key
players must first be identified. We classify the players into three clusters: users, things and
services
 Users are human participants that use services and their own end equipment’s. They
mostly consume information and may inspire actions through profile settings and
other decision making processes.
 Things are physical or virtual endpoints representing either a data source, data sink or
both. They feed or consume information to and from the Internet.
 Services are information aggregators and may provide tools for data analysis of
different kinds. In some cases can be used to carry out actions requested by clients,
either users or things.

Figure: The IOT Players

148
 The different devices and environments needed in IoT can be layered as shown in the
figure. The sensors and devices needed in the IoT environment are the bottom layer. The
different types of sensors can be temperature, pressure, moisture etc. The data captured by the
sensors needs to be processed using processors and enabling technologies. The technologies
include RFID detection, motion sensing etc. Some of the technologies that enable these
devices are discussed further in the Wireless Sensor networks section. Examples include
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc. The processed data can be stored using cloud infrastructures and thus in
turn provide different IoT services. The different types of IoT services include Home
automation, healthcare services, energy management, emergency services among others.

Figure: Architecture of IoT

149
Challenges of IOT:
Preparing the lowest layers of technology for the horizontal nature of the IoT requires
manufacturers to deliver on the most fundamental challenges, including:
Connectivity: There is not one connectivity standard that “wins” over the others. There are a
wide variety of wired and wireless standards as well as proprietary implementations used to
connect the things in the IoT. The challenge is getting the connectivity standards to talk to
one another with one common worldwide data currency.
Power management: More things within the IoT need to be battery powered or use energy
harvesting to be more portable and self-sustaining. Line-powered equipment need to be more
energy efficient. The challenge is making it easy to add power management to these devices
and equipment. Wireless charging incorporates connectivity with charge management.
Complexity: Manufacturers are looking to add connectivity to devices and equipment that
has never been connected before to become part of the IoT. Ease of design and development
is essential to get more things connected especially when typical RF programming is
complex. Additionally, the average consumer needs to be able to set-up and use their devices
without a technical background
Rapid evolution: The IoT is constantly changing and evolving. More devices are being
added everyday and the industry is still in its naissance. The challenge facing the industry is
the unknown; unknown devices, unknown applications, unknown use cases. Given this, there
needs to be flexibility in all facets of development. Processors and microcontrollers that range
from 16–1500 MHz to address the full spectrum of applications from a microcontroller
(MCU) in a small, energy-harvested wireless sensor node to high-performance, multi-core
processors for IoT infrastructure. A wide variety of wired and wireless connectivity
technologies are needed to meet the various needs of the market. Last, a wide selection of
sensors, mixed-signal and power-management technologies are required to provide the user
interface to the IoT and energy-friendly designs.
 There are several fundamental features that a “thing” has to encompass to be a good
IoT solution. Among these, the most important features are energy efficiency,
security, data handling and simplicity.
Energy Efficiency: As the number of devices grows, even small amounts of excessive power
are a noticeable waste. When it comes to power, the challenge is to ensure that adding
Internet connectivity does not impose a change to the power supply. In other words, ideally it
should fit within the existing power budget headroom. The TIVA Launchpad, being an ultra-
low power MCU ensures that the IoT application takes minimal power.

150
Security: Security is always a challenge in data networks. This challenge intensifies in the
case of the IoT simply because there are more entry points thereby creating more penetration
points. This increased system vulnerability makes the battle for security inevitable. In an IoT
solution, threats also take a new level of magnitude since it is not just data that is put at risk.
With IoT the damage potential is much higher (e.g., opening a door remotely, taking a
burglar alarm system offline). There will surely be a never-ending fight towards better
security. This provides inbuilt security features to address major security requirements.
Data handling: Massive deployment of endpoints results in higher node density. This
requires demand for higher capacity. Furthermore, large quantities of data that are generated
create a need for accessible storage. In addition, real network latency introduces a challenge
to limited resource systems. The TI wireless modules provide easy interfacing with the TIVA
Launchpad to provide connectivity that suits the need of the IoT application.

Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks and Design

Examples:
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are networks of tiny, battery powered sensor
nodes with limited onboard processing, storage and radio capabilities. Recent advances in
micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, embedded electronics and wireless
communication have made it possible to develop low-power and low-cost sensor nodes that
are small in size and communicate using wireless medium over short distances. The sensor
units in the nodes can sense any desired parameter (like temperature, pressure humidity,
movement etc.) in an area that is covered by the network. The sensed data is then relayed
through the network to the base station, where information can be generated and acted upon
to serve the purpose for which the network has been deployed.

WSNs are on the verge of being utilized for many challenging real-life applications
like early earthquake warning systems, battlefield surveillance, environment and habitat

151
monitoring, healthcare, smart homes and buildings etc... This involves deploying a large
number of nodes in the area to be sensed by the network. This large-scale deployment often
requires the nodes to possess self-organizing capability to form a network without any human
intervention. A typical cluster-based sensor network topology as shown in Figure consists of
a base station, cluster-head nodes and sensor nodes. The base station is normally connected to
the outside world through internet link or a user terminal.

Figure: A Typical Sensor Network Architecture

Wireless Connectivity in Embedded Networks:

Wireless communication has become a preferred choice for connecting the devices in
embedded networks. Communication technologies like NFC, ZigBee, Bluetooth, WiFi, and
cellular have already become popular with developers working on Smart Homes, Sensor
Networks and IoT based applications. The choice of a connectivity option depends upon
various factors like communication range, bandwidth requirements, security issues, and
power consumption. Before learning more detail about these wireless communication
technologies, a brief overview of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model used for
communication between two entities is given below:
OSI Model for Communication:
OSI model is a conceptual model that is used to organize the various functions of a
communication system by arranging them into seven different layers as shown in below

152
figure. The function performed by each layer in implementing an end-to-end communication
system is described below:
Physical Layer:

This layer specifies the physical medium used to transmit bits between
communicating systems. In wired systems, the physical layer may specify the use of copper
wires or fiber optic cable for wired systems. Similarly for wireless technology like ZigBee,
the physical layer specifications mention the use of 2.4 GHz ISM frequency band as one of
the options for communication.
Data Link Layer:
When two or more nodes try to use the physical media simultaneously for data
transfer, the data packets may collide and, the nodes need to try again for access to the media.
In this case, data link layer acts as a local traffic cop to regulate the medium access by the
nodes of the network. Another important role of the data link layer can be to detect and
correct the errors that may occur when data is transferred on the medium.
Network Layer:

The primary function of network layer is to forward data packets (received from
higher layers) from one point to another over the network. The data packets may travel across
many different networks, guided on the way by gateway and router devices, to their final
destination.
Transport Layer:

This layer provides a reliable end-to-end connection oriented data transfer along with
error and flow control services. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the most common
transport layer protocol used on Internet.
Session Layer:

The reliable end-to-end connection provided by transport layer is used to set-up an

interactive session between the two communicating computers or end-user applications. The
session layer protocols are responsible to open, manage and close these sessions to support
effective data communication.
Presentation Layer:

This layer ensures that the data presented to the application layer is in proper format
and ready to be used. For example, data transmitted in EBCDIC-code by the sender may be
converted at the receiver end by presentation layer to ASCII code format used by the
application layer.

153
Application layer:

The protocols used in this layer define the user interface that finally displays the
information to the user.

Figure: Protocol stack of OSI

Wi-Fi:
Wi-Fi is a wireless local area network (WLAN) technology that allows electronic devices to
network using the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz ISM radio bands. It is based on the IEEE 802.11 MAC
and physical layer standards for WLAN and is the most pervasive choice for connectivity
with the Internet, especially in the home LAN environment. Wi-Fi supports very fast data
transfer rates, but consumes a lot of power which makes it unviable for low-power
applications. Nevertheless, the embedded networks, wireless sensor network applications and
Internet-of-Things implementations explicitly make use of Wi-Fi as a preferred choice for
connectivity to the Internet.

Adding Wi-Fi capability to the Microcontroller:

To illustrate the use of wireless connectivity in embedded networks, this section discusses the
usage of Wi-Fi technology with a microcontroller. Wi-Fi is very widely used to provide
connectivity between user and embedded systems. For example, a user can interact with

154
utility systems (like AC, Garage door, Coffee machine, etc.) in a smart-home using a
smartphone, provided both (smart-home and smartphone) are connected to the internet.
TI provides low-power and easy-to-use Wi-Fi solutions that include battery-operated
Wi-Fi designs with more than a year of battery life on two AA batteries. TI’s Simple Link
Wi-Fi CC3100 module is a wireless network processor with on-chip Wi-Fi, internet, and
robust security protocols. It can be used to connect any low-cost microcontroller (MCU). A
functional block diagram of CC3100 module is shown in the below figure.

Figure: Functional diagram of SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3100 Module

Figure: CC3100 Booster Pack (SimpleLink Wi-Fi) mounted on TIVA Launchpad

155
Embedded Wi-Fi:
It is important to understand the hardware and software architecture of any device
before using it in a design. Figure 5.17 shows the hardware architecture for SimpleLink Wi-
Fi CC3100 module, that can be used to provide Wi-Fi connectivity to any micro-controller
based system. It consists mainly of two parts:
I. Wi-Fi Network Processor Subsystem
II. Power-management Subsystem
Wi-Fi Network Processor Subsystem:
The Wi-Fi Network Processor subsystem mainly consists of the following:
1) Dedicated ARM MCU – It executes the Wi-Fi and Internet protocols required to
communicate over the Internet using Wi-Fi connectivity.
2) ROM–stores pre-programmed Wi-Fi driver and multiple Internet protocols
3) TCP/IP Stack – supports communication with Figure Hardware Architecture for
CC3100 computer systems on the Internet
4) Crypto Engine – provides fast, and secure Wi-Fi as well as Internet connectivity
5) 802.11 b/g/n Radio, Baseband and Medium Access Control - for wireless
transmission and reception of data
6) SPI/ UART Interface – connects the CC3100 module to the host MCU.

Figure: Hardware Architecture for CC3100

156
Power Management Subsystem:
The power management subsystem of CC3100 module provides the CC3100 module
with an integrated DC-to-DC converter with a wide range of power supply from 2.3 to 3.6 V.
This subsystem enables low-power consumption modes such as hibernate with RTC mode,
which requires approximately 7 μA of current.
Features of Wi-Fi supported by CC3100 chip:
The Wi-Fi network processor sub-system in SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3100 device
integrates all protocols for Wi-Fi and Internet, greatly minimizing MCU software
requirements. With built-in security protocols, SimpleLink Wi-Fi provides a simple yet
robust security experience. This section discusses the features of Wi-Fi supported by the
CC3100 device. A list of features and the functionality provided by them is given in below
Table.
Table: Wi-Fi features

User APIs for Wireless and Networking Applications:

In order to simplify the development using the SimpleLink Wi-Fi devices, TI provides
a simple and user friendly host driver software. This driver software allows any MCU (like
TIVA platform) to interact with a SimpleLink device and performs the following
functions:User APIs for Wireless and Networking applications.
1. Provides a simple API for user application development.
2. Handles the communication of MCU with the SimpleLInk device.
3. Provides flexibility in working with a MCU, with or without an OS.
4. Works with existing UART or SPI physical interface drivers
5. Compatible with 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit MCUs

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The SimpleLink Host Driver includes a set of six logical and simple API modules:
 Device API – Manages hardware-related functionality such as start, stop, set, and get
device configurations.
 WLAN API – Manages WLAN, 802.11 protocol-related functionality such as device
mode (station, AP, or P2P), setting provisioning method, adding connection profiles,
and setting connection policy.
 Socket API – The most common API set for user applications, and adheres to BSD
socket APIs.
 NetApp API – Enables different networking services including the Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server service, DHCP server service, and MDNS
client\server service.
 NetCfg API – Configures different networking parameters, such as setting the MAC
address, acquiring the IP address by DHCP, and setting the static IP address.
 File System API – Provides access to the serial flash component for read and write
operations of networking or user proprietary data.
Building IoT applications using CC3100 user API:
Get whether application using CC3100:
This application demonstrates how to connect to openweathermap.org server and
request for weather details of a city. The application opens a TCP socket w/ the server and
sends a HTTP Get request to get the weather details. The received data is processed and
displayed on the console window as shown below.

Figure: Block diagram of Get Weather application

158
Figure: Get Weather Application Console Window

Figure: Flow Chart of getting weather application

159
 To perform this application, we need to set an IP address for the device CC3100 with
TIVA Launchpad. We can set IP address for the device CC3100 statically or dynamically as
we discussed in the session. The below steps demonstrates the configuration of a static IP
address for CC3100 TIVA Launchpad. Here the device connects to the Access Point (APwith
the configured static IP. The static IP address is stored inside the non-volatile memory of
CC3100.The basic steps for assigning IP address to a CC3100 device are given in the
flowchart shown in figure.

Figure: Flowchart for configuring a static IP address for CC3100 module

In this case study the module CC3100 is configured as a Wireless Local Area
Network (WLAN) Station to connect to the internet and open weather.org as a server. A
wireless local area network (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that connects two or
more devices without wires within a confined area for example within a building. This
facilitates the users to stay connected without physical wiring constraints and also access
Internet. Wi-Fi is based on IEEE 802.11 standards including IEEE 802.11a and
IEEE802.11b.

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 All nodes that connect over a wireless network are referred to as stations (STA).
Wireless stations can be categorized into Wireless Access Points (AP) or clients. Access
Points (AP) work as the base station for a wireless network. The Wireless clients could be
any device such as computers, laptops, mobile devices, smartphones etc. The flowchart for
this case study is shown in figure.

Figure: Flowchart for using CC3100 as a WLAN Station

We can also make CC3100 module as a HTTP server with TIVA Launchpad. HTTP
is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is a client/server protocol used to
deliver hypertext resources (HTML web pages, images, query results, and so forth) to the
client side. HTTP works on top of a predefined TCP/IP. ( Transmission Control Protocol /
Internet Protocol). HTTP web server allows endusers to remotely communicate with the
CC3100 by using a standard web browser. The HTTP web server enables the following
functions:
 Device configuration
 Device status and diagnostic
 Application-specific functionality

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 The HTTP server handles the HTTP request by listening on the HTTP socket id which
is by default 80. Based on the request type, such as HTTP GET or HTTP POST, the server
handles the request URI resource and content. The server then composes the appropriate
HTTP response and returns it to the client. The server communicates with the serial flash file
system, which hosts the web page files. The files are saved in the serial flash with their
individual filenames.
If we configure CC3100 as a server then it will be in Access Point (AP) mode with a
pre-defined SSIDNAME and uses the sample HTML pages stored in Flash which can be
accessed by the clients. Clients can connect to CC3100 and request for web-pages using the
IP of device from any standard web browser. There are pre-programmed html pages already
residing on the flash and new HTML pages can be downloaded on serial-flash of CC3100
using CCS_UniFlash utility using a separate tool EMU-BOOST. The scope of this study will
be to use the existing html pages already pre-programmed in the flash by default. The
flowchart for using CC3100 device as a HTTP server is given in below figure.

Figure: Flowchart for configuring CC3100 as a HTTP Server

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Case Study: Tiva based Embedded Networking Application:
“Smart Plug with Remote Disconnect and Wi-Fi Connectivity”:
In this application, the WiFi enabled Smart plug helps you to control any connected
device from home or remotely from anywhere in the world with internet access such as home
appliances like control portable heaters or window ac, turn on a light, Smart Grid and in
building automation. A smart plug is an electronic device, generally connected to other
devices or networks via different wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, 3G, etc.,
that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously.
Now an day all application like home automation and building automation requires
two main aspects of Smart Plug technology.
 Android and cloud based remote access.
 Remote disconnect and Wi-Fi connectivity based upon power consumption.
In this case study the WiFi enabled Smart Plug utilizes a TIVA Launchpad to monitor the
energy consumption for a single load and control the high-voltage side of the design. This
data is then passed to a CC3100 module to communicate the data over Wi-Fi to a Cloud
server. A solid state relay enables the application to control the load, based on its energy
consumption. And this system is powered from a highly compact and efficient UCC28910D
High-Voltage Flyback Switcher with Primary-Side Regulation and Output Current Control.

Figure: Block diagram of Smart Plug with WiFi connectivity

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Figure: Flow chart of Smart Plug with Wi-Fi connectivity

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 PART-A

1. Explain about USB Protocol?

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is technology that allows a person to connect an electronic
device to a computer. It is a fast serial bus. It is mostly used on personal computers. ... Most
people use USB for computer mice, keyboards, scanners, printers, digital cameras, and USB flash
drives.
2. Explain about I2c protocol?
The Inter-integrated Circuit (I2C) Protocol is a protocol intended to allow multiple “slave” digital
integrated circuits (“chips”) to communicate with one or more “master” chips. Like the Serial
Peripheral Interface (SPI), it is only intended for short distance communications within a single
device. I2C uses only two wires: SCL (serial clock) and SDA (serial data). ... There are
also I2C level shifters which can be used to connect to two I2C buses with different voltages.
3. What is meant by serial communication?
Serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over
a communication channel or computer bus.
4. What is meant by Parallel communication?
Parallel communication is where several bits are sent as a whole, on a link with several parallel
channels.
5. What is meant by Synchronous communication?
There are many serial data transfer protocols. The protocols for serial data transfer can be grouped
into two types: synchronous and asynchronous. For synchronous data transfer, both the sender
and receiver access the data according to the same clock. Therefore, a special line for the clock
signal is required. It supports high data transfer rate. It needs clock signal between the sender and
the receiver. It requires master/slave configuration
6. What is meant by Asynchronous communication?
In Asynchronous data transfer sender provides a synchronization signal to the receiver before
starting the transfer of each message. It does not need clock signal between the sender and the
receiver and It is having slower data transfer rate.
7. Difference between UART and SPI?
UART and SPI are serial communications interfaces between two devices (such as a Wi-Fi
module and a host microcontroller). The two interfaces differ in the protocol and speeds at which
a bidirectional serial communications link is created between two devices. In terms of speed,
simple UARTs typically operate at 0.3 Kbps to 1 Mbps whereas a SPI can operate up to 50 Mbps
or sometimes more
A UART is an asynchronous interface since the transmitter and receiver use independent clock
sources. An asynchronous UART can operate using 3-wires: Ground, Transmit (Tx) and Receive
(Rx). The interface can be extended to use 5-wires for higher data rates. The additional two wires
RTS (Ready-to-Send) and CTS (Clear-to-Send) enable either device to pause transmission to
allow processing of data already received, or to service other real-time application requirements.
SPI is an synchronous interface that uses a dedicated clock signal. The device considered the
'Master' provides a clock signal used to synchronize data transactions between the two devices. A
SPI interface is always a 4-wire system that includes a common ground
8. What is meant by IOT?
Any stand-alone internet-connected device that can be monitored and/or controlled from a remote
location.
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 OR
The Internet of Things (IoT), also sometimes referred to as the Internet of Everything (IoE),
consists of all the web-enabled devices that collect, send and act on data they acquire from their
surrounding environments using embedded sensors, processors and communication hardware.

9. Explain about Embedding Wi-Fi?

Wireless LAN, or Wi-Fi as it is also known, as the primary wireless interface in
embedded systems. These devices often need to communicate with external monitoring or control
systems, and when this communication is based on the universal TCP/IP mechanism, they form a
part of the rapidly growing 'Internet of Things.
10. Explain about APIs?
An application programming interface (API) is a particular set of rules ('code') and
specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other. It serves
as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction, similar to the
way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. Application program
interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications.
An API specifies how software components should interact and APIs are used when
programming graphical user interface (GUI) components.
11. What are the applications of IOT?
Smart city is another powerful application of IoT generating curiosity among world's population.
Smart surveillance, automated transportation, smarter energy management systems, water
distribution, urban security and environmental monitoring all are examples of internet of things
applications for smart cities.
Real World Applications of IoT:
1. Smart Home
2. Wearables
3. Connected Cars
4. Industrial Internet
5. Smart Cities
6. IoT in agriculture
7. Smart Retail
8. Energy Engagement
9. IOT in Healthcare
10. IOT in poultry and Farming

12. What are the advantages of adding Wi-Fi capability to the microcontroller?(Nov/Dec 2018)

Wi-Fi is very widely used to provide connectivity between user and embedded systems. For
example, a user can interact with utility systems (like AC, Garage door, Coffee machine, etc.)
in a smart-home using a smartphone, provided both (smart-home and smartphone) are
connected to the internet.
TI provides low-power and easy-to-use Wi-Fi solutions that include battery-operated
Wi-Fi designs with more than a year of battery life on two AA batteries. TI’s Simple Link
Wi-Fi CC3100 module is a wireless network processor with on-chip Wi-Fi, internet, and
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 robust security protocols. It can be used to connect any low-cost microcontroller (MCU).

13. Define Baud rate?

Baud, or baud rate, is used to describe the maximum oscillation rate of an electronic signal. For
example, if a signal changes (or could change) 1200 times in one second, it would be measured at
1200 baud. While the term was originally used to measure the rate of electronic pulses, it has also
become a way to measure data transmission speeds of dial-up modems.
14. What are the advantages and disadvantages of SPI?
ADVANTAGES
 No start and stop bits, so the data can be streamed continuously without interruption
 No complicated slave addressing system like I2C
 Higher data transfer rate than I2C (almost twice as fast)
 Separate MISO and MOSI lines, so data can be sent and received at the same time

DISADVANTAGES
 Uses four wires (I2C and UARTs use two)
 No acknowledgement that the data has been successfully received (I2C has this)
 No form of error checking like the parity bit in UART
 Only allows for a single master

15. What are the general electric characteristics of I2C?

To implement I2C (For TIVA series microcontrollers or for most of the microcontrollers) a
4.7kilo ohm pull-up resistor for each line is needed. This is required to implement wired-
AND logic in IIC.
More than 100 devices can be connected to I2C bus theoretically. It is better to restrict
to 15 devices for better performance of the network. Each device is called as node. Nodes
which generates clock are called Master nodes and devices which work based on the clock
generated by master node are called Slave nodes. Generally, master nodes initiate and
terminate the transmission. The four possible modes of operation are: master transmitter,
master receiver, slave transmitter and slave receiver.

16. Draw the frame format of I2C communication.(Nov/Dec 2018)

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 PART-B

1. Explain the implementation procedure and programming I2C and USB interface using TM4C (Nov/Dec 2018)
2. Elucidate the principles of TIVA based embedded system application using the interface protocols for
communication with external devices? (Nov/Dec 2018)
3. Draw & explain the uses of target system?
4. Draw & explain the Architecture of IOT?
5. a)What is asynchronous communication?
b) Explain the block diagram of TIVA UART?
6. Give the concept of embedded Wi-Fi
7. Give the concept of Application programming Interfaces
8. Explain the user APIs for wireless and networking applications
9. Write about the applicability of embedded systems in wireless communications.

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