PIC18LF24K Datasheet, PDF (336/594 Pages) –

PIC18(L)F26/45/46K40
26.5 SPI Mode Operation
Transmissions involve two shift registers, eight bits in
size, one in the master and one in the slave. With either
the master or the slave device, data is always shifted
out one bit at a time, with the Most Significant bit (MSb)
shifted out first. At the same time, a new Least
Significant bit (LSb) is shifted into the same register.
Figure 26-3 shows a typical connection between two
processors configured as master and slave devices.
Data is shifted out of both shift registers on the
programmed clock edge and latched on the opposite
edge of the clock.
The master device transmits information out on its SDO
output pin which is connected to, and received by, the
slave’s SDI input pin. The slave device transmits infor-
mation out on its SDO output pin, which is connected
to, and received by, the master’s SDI input pin.
To begin communication, the master device first sends
out the clock signal. Both the master and the slave
devices should be configured for the same clock polar-
ity.
The master device starts a transmission by sending out
the MSb from its shift register. The slave device reads
this bit from that same line and saves it into the LSb
position of its shift register.
During each SPI clock cycle, a full-duplex data
transmission occurs. This means that while the master
device is sending out the MSb from its shift register (on
its SDO pin) and the slave device is reading this bit and
saving it as the LSb of its shift register, that the slave
device is also sending out the MSb from its shift register
(on its SDO pin) and the master device is reading this
bit and saving it as the LSb of its shift register.
After eight bits have been shifted out, the master and
slave have exchanged register values.
If there is more data to exchange, the shift registers are
loaded with new data and the process repeats itself.
Whether the data is meaningful or not (dummy data),
depends on the application software. This leads to
three scenarios for data transmission:
• Master sends useful data and slave sends dummy
data.
• Master sends useful data and slave sends useful
data.
• Master sends dummy data and slave sends useful
data.
Transmissions may involve any number of clock
cycles. When there is no more data to be transmitted,
the master stops sending the clock signal and it
deselects the slave.
Every slave device connected to the bus that has not
been selected through its slave select line must disre-
gard the clock and transmission signals and must not
transmit out any data of its own.
When initializing the SPI, several options need to be
specified. This is done by programming the appropriate
control bits (SSPxCON1<5:0> and SSPxSTAT<7:6>).
These control bits allow the following to be specified:
• Master mode (SCK is the clock output)
• Slave mode (SCK is the clock input)
• Clock Polarity (Idle state of SCK)
• Data Input Sample Phase (middle or end of data
output time)
• Clock Edge (output data on rising/falling edge of
SCK)
• Clock Rate (Master mode only)
• Slave Select mode (Slave mode only)
To enable the serial port, SSP Enable bit, SSPEN of the
SSPxCON1 register, must be set. To reset or reconfig-
ure SPI mode, clear the SSPEN bit, re-initialize the
SSPxCONx registers and then set the SSPEN bit. This
configures the SDI, SDO, SCK and SS pins as serial
port pins. For the pins to behave as the serial port
function, some must have their data direction bits (in
the TRIS register) appropriately programmed as
follows:
• SDI must have corresponding TRIS bit set
• SDO must have corresponding TRIS bit cleared
• SCK (Master mode) must have corresponding
TRIS bit cleared
• SCK (Slave mode) must have corresponding
TRIS bit set
• SS must have corresponding TRIS bit set
Any serial port function that is not desired may be
overridden by programming the corresponding data
direction (TRIS) register to the opposite value.
The MSSP consists of a transmit/receive shift register
(SSPSR) and a buffer register (SSPxBUF). The
SSPSR shifts the data in and out of the device, MSb
first. The SSPxBUF holds the data that was written to
the SSPSR until the received data is ready. Once the
eight bits of data have been received, that byte is
moved to the SSPxBUF register. Then, the Buffer Full
Detect bit, BF of the SSPxSTAT register, and the inter-
rupt flag bit, SSPxIF, are set. This double-buffering of
the received data (SSPxBUF) allows the next byte to
start reception before reading the data that was just
received. Any write to the SSPxBUF register during
transmission/reception of data will be ignored and the
write collision detect bit, WCOL of the SSPxCON1 reg-
ister, will be set. User software must clear the WCOL bit
to allow the following write(s) to the SSPxBUF register
to complete successfully.
 2016 Microchip Technology Inc.
Preliminary
DS40001816C-page 336