SPI Bus Protocol

20th April 2018

Sudhanshu Janwadkar, SVNIT

Introduction
• The Serial Peripheral Interface bus (SPI) is
 synchronous
 serial communication interface specification
 used for short distance communication

• The interface was developed by Motorola in 1980s

• SPI devices communicate in full duplex mode using

a master-slave architecture with a single master.
 The master device originates the frame for reading
and writing.
 Multiple slave devices are supported through
selection with individual slave select (SS) lines.
The trouble with asynchronous
protocols
• The common serial port, such as UART, is called
“asynchronous” because there is no control over
when data is sent or any guarantee that both sides
are running at precisely the same rate.

• There can be an issue when two systems with

slightly different clocks try to communicate with
each other.

• To mitigate this issue, asynchronous serial

connections add extra start and stop bits to each
byte, so as to help the receiver sync up to data as it
arrives.

• Both sides must also agree on the same baud rate

in advance.
The trouble with asynchronous
protocols
• Asynchronous serial works just fine, but
 has a lot of overhead in both the extra start and
stop bits sent with every byte
 the complex hardware required to send and receive
data
 if both sides aren’t set to the same speed, the
received data will be garbage. This is because the
receiver is sampling the bits at very specific times If
the receiver is looking at the wrong times, it will see
the wrong bits.
How is ‘synchronous’ beneficial?
• A “synchronous” data bus uses separate lines for
data and clock that keeps both sides in perfect
sync.
• The clock is an oscillating signal that tells the
receiver exactly when to sample the bits on the
data line.
 This could be the rising (low to high) or falling (high
to low) edge of the clock signal; the datasheet will
specify which one to use.
• When the receiver detects that edge, it will
immediately look at the data line to read the next bit
• Because the clock is sent along with the data,
specifying the speed isn’t important, although
devices will have a top speed at which they can
operate
The SPI Protocol - basics
• The SPI bus can operate with a single master
device and with one or more slave devices.
• One unique feature of SPI is 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.
The SPI Protocol - basics
• Devices communicating via SPI are in a master-
slave relationship.
• In SPI, only one side generates the clock signal
 The side that generates the clock is called the
“master”, and the other side is called the “slave”.
• The master is the controlling device (usually a
microcontroller), while the slave (usually a sensor,
display, or memory chip) takes instruction from the
master.
• There is always only one master but there can be
multiple slaves.
 The SPI Interface
The SPI bus specifies four logic signals:

 SCLK: Serial Clock (output from master).

 MOSI: Master Output Slave Input (data output from
master).
 MISO: Master Input Slave Output, or Master In Slave
Out (data output from slave).
 SS: Slave Select (often active low, output from
master).
The SPI Interface
Serial Clock (SCLK)
• SPI is a synchronous communication protocol.

• The clock signal synchronizes the output of data

bits from the master with 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.
The SPI Interface
Slave Select
• The master can choose which slave it wants to
communicate 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
The SPI Interface
Multiple Slaves

Only one CS/SS pin is

 Multiple CS/SS pins
present, multiple slaves
are available on the
are wired to the master by
master
daisy-chaining
The Protocol
1. To begin communication, the bus master configures
the clock, using a frequency supported by the slave
device, typically up to a few MHz.
2. The master then selects the slave device with a logic
level 0 on the select line.
 If a waiting period is required, such as for an analog-
to-digital conversion, the master must wait for at
least that period of time before issuing clock cycles.
3. During each SPI clock cycle, a full duplex data
transmission occurs.
 The master sends a bit on the MOSI line and the
slave reads it, while the slave sends a bit on the
MISO line and the master reads it.
The Protocol (summary)
1. The master outputs the clock signal

2. The master switches the SS/CS pin to a low voltage

state, which activates the slave:
The Protocol (summary)
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
Data Transmission in SPI

• Transmissions normally involve two shift registers

of some given word size ( may be 8eight bits), one
in the master and one in the slave
• They are connected in a virtual ring topology.
• Data is usually shifted out with the most-significant
bit first. On the clock edge, both master and slave
shift out a bit and output it on the transmission line
to the counterpart.
Data Transmission in SPI
• On the next clock edge, at each receiver the bit is
sampled from the transmission line and set as a
new least-significant bit of the shift register.
• After the register bits have been shifted out and in,
the master and slave have exchanged register
values.
• If more data needs to be exchanged, the shift
registers are reloaded and the process repeats.
• Transmission may continue for any number of clock
cycles.
• When complete, the master stops toggling the
clock signal, and typically deselects the slave.
Advantages of SPI
• Full duplex
• Push-pull drivers (as opposed to open drain)
provide good signal integrity and high speed
• Higher throughput than I²C or SMBus.
• Not limited to any maximum clock speed, enabling
potentially high speed
• Not limited to 8-bit words
• Slaves use the master's clock and do not need
precision oscillators
• Slaves do not need a unique address — unlike I²C
or GPIB or SCSI
Limitations of SPI
• Requires more pins on IC packages than I²C
• No hardware flow control by the slave (but the
master can delay the next clock edge to slow the
transfer rate)
• No hardware slave acknowledgment (the master
could be transmitting to nowhere and not know it)
• Typically supports only one master device
(depends on device's hardware implementation)
• No error-checking protocol is defined
Applications of SPI
SPI is used to talk to a variety of peripherals, such as
• Sensors: temperature, pressure, ADC,
touchscreens, video game controllers
• Control devices: audio codecs, digital
potentiometers, DAC
• Memory: flash and EEPROM
• Real-time clocks
• LCD, sometimes even for managing image data
• Any MMC or SD card
Review Questions
1. Compare and contrast UART, I2C and SPI, citing
the features, advantages and disadvantages of
each.
2. What are the demerits of asynchronous
communication protocols? How are they overcome
in SPI?
3. List out the Interface signals used in SPI protocol
and brief out their significance.
4. List the set of operations involved in completing a
serial communication using SPI protocol. Draw the
hardware interface, in support.
5. List out the advantages and limitations of SPI
protocol. Also, list some of the applications.