The Typical Embedded System

Communication Interface
 Communication interface is essential for communicating with various subsystems of the
embedded system and with the external world
 For an embedded product, the communication interface can be viewed in two different
perspectives; namely; Device/board level communication interface (Onboard Communication
Interface) and Product level communication interface (External Communication Interface)
 Embedded product is a combination of different types of components (chips/devices)
arranged on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB). The communication channel which interconnects
the various components within an embedded product is referred as Device/board level
communication interface (Onboard Communication Interface)
 Serial interfaces like I2C, SPI, UART, 1-Wire etc and Parallel bus interface are examples of
‘Onboard Communication Interface’
 The ‘Product level communication interface’ (External Communication Interface) is
responsible for data transfer between the embedded system and other devices or modules
 The external communication interface can be either wired media or wireless media and it can
be a serial or parallel interface. Infrared (IR), Bluetooth (BT), Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), Radio
Frequency waves (RF), GPRS etc are examples for wireless communication interface
 RS-232C/RS-422/RS 485, USB, Ethernet (TCP-IP), IEEE 1394 port, Parallel port, CF-II Slot,
SDIO, PCMCIA etc are examples for wired interfaces 52
 The Typical Embedded System
On-board Communication Interface - I2C
 Inter Integrated Circuit Bus (I2C - Pronounced ‘I square C’) is a synchronous bi-directional half
duplex (one-directional communication at a given point of time) two wire serial interface bus
 The concept of I2C bus was developed by ‘Philips Semiconductors’ in the early 1980’s. The
original intention of I2C was to provide an easy way of connection between a
microprocessor/microcontroller system and the peripheral chips in Television sets
 The I2C bus is comprised of two bus lines, namely; Serial Clock – SCL and Serial Data – SDA.
SCL line is responsible for generating synchronization clock pulses and SDA is responsible for
transmitting the serial data across devices.
 I2C bus is a shared bus system to which many number of I2C devices can be connected. Devices
connected to the I2C bus can act as either ‘Master’ device or ‘Slave’ device
 The ‘Master’ device is responsible for controlling the communication by initiating/terminating
data transfer, sending data and generating necessary synchronization clock pulses
 ‘Slave’ devices wait for the commands from the master and respond upon receiving the
commands
 ‘Master’ and ‘Slave’ devices can act as either transmitter or receiver
 Regardless whether a master is acting as transmitter or receiver, the synchronization clock signal
is generated by the ‘Master’ device only
 I2C supports multi masters on the same bus
53
The Typical Embedded System
On-board Communication Interface - I2C

SCL SDA Vcc

2.2K

SDA
2.2K
Port Pins SCL
Slave 1
SCL I2C Device
Master SDA (Eg: Serial
(Microprocessor/ EEPROM)
Controller)

SCL Slave 2
SDA I2C Device

I2C Bus

54
 The Typical Embedded System
On-board Communication Interface - I2C
The sequence of operation for communicating with an I2C slave device is:
1. Master device pulls the clock line (SCL) of the bus to ‘HIGH’
2. Master device pulls the data line (SDA) ‘LOW’, when the SCL line is at logic ‘HIGH’ (This is the ‘Start’
condition for data transfer)
3. Master sends the address (7 bit or 10 bit wide) of the ‘Slave’ device to which it wants to communicate, over the
SDA line. Clock pulses are generated at the SCL line for synchronizing the bit reception by the slave device.
The MSB of the data is always transmitted first. The data in the bus is valid during the ‘HIGH’ period of the
clock signal
4. Master sends the Read or Write bit (Bit value = 1 Read Operation; Bit value = 0 Write Operation) according to
the requirement
5. Master waits for the acknowledgement bit from the slave device whose address is sent on the bus along with the
Read/Write operation command. Slave devices connected to the bus compares the address received with the
address assigned to them
6. The Slave device with the address requested by the master device responds by sending an acknowledge bit (Bit
value =1) over the SDA line
7. Upon receiving the acknowledge bit, master sends the 8bit data to the slave device over SDA line, if the
requested operation is ‘Write to device’. If the requested operation is ‘Read from device’, the slave device sends
data to the master over the SDA line
8. Master waits for the acknowledgement bit from the device upon byte transfer complete for a write operation and
sends an acknowledge bit to the slave device for a read operation
9. Master terminates the transfer by pulling the SDA line ‘HIGH’ when the clock line SCL is at logic ‘HIGH’
(Indicating the ‘STOP’ condition) 55
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus

The Serial Peripheral Interface Bus (SPI) is a synchronous bi-directional full duplex four
wire serial interface bus. The concept of SPI is introduced by Motorola. SPI is a single
master multi-slave system. It is possible to have a system where more than one SPI device
can be master, provided the condition only one master device is active at any given point
of time, is satisfied. SPI requires four signal lines for communication. They are:

Master Out Slave In (MOSI): Signal line carrying the data from master to slave device.
It is also known as Slave Input/Slave Data In (SI/SDI)
Master In Slave Out (MISO): Signal line carrying the data from slave to master device.
It is also known as Slave Output (SO/SDO)
Serial Clock (SCLK): Signal line carrying the clock signals
Slave Select (SS): Signal line for slave device select. It is an active low
signal

56
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus

MOSI SCL MISO

MISO
SCL
MOSI MOSI Slave 1
SCL SPI Device
Master
MISO (Eg: Serial
(Microprocessor/
SS\ EEPROM)
Controller)
SS1\
SS2\
MOSI
Slave 2
SCL
SPI Device
MISO
(Eg: LCD)
SS\

SPI Bus 57
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus

 The master device is responsible for generating the clock signal. Master device selects
the required slave device by asserting the corresponding slave device’s slave select
signal ‘LOW’. The data out line (MISO) of all the slave devices when not selected
floats at high impedance state
 The serial data transmission through SPI Bus is fully configurable. SPI devices
contain certain set of registers for holding these configurations. The Serial Peripheral
Control Register holds the various configuration parameters like master/slave
selection for the device, baudrate selection for communication, clock signal control
etc. The status register holds the status of various conditions for transmission and
reception.
 SPI works on the principle of ‘Shift Register’. The master and slave devices contain a
special shift register for the data to transmit or receive. The size of the shift register is
device dependent. Normally it is a multiple of 8. During transmission from the master
to slave, the data in the master’s shift register is shifted out to the MOSI pin and it
enters the shift register of the slave device through the MOSI pin of the slave device.
At the same time the shifted out data bit from the slave device’s shift register enters
the shift register of the master device through MISO pin 58
 The Typical Embedded System
On-board Communication Interface –
Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART)
 Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) based data transmission is an
asynchronous form of serial data transmission
 The serial communication settings (Baudrate, No. of bits per byte, parity, No. of start
bits and stop bit and flow control) for both transmitter and receiver should be set as
identical
 The start and stop of communication is indicated through inserting special bits in the
data stream
 While sending a byte of data, a start bit is added first and a stop bit is added at the end
of the bit stream. The least significant bit of the data byte follows the start bit.
 The ‘Start’ bit informs the receiver that a data byte is about to arrive. The receiver
device starts polling its ‘receive line’ as per the baudrate settings
 If parity is enabled for communication, the UART of the transmitting device adds a
parity bit
 The UART of the receiving device calculates the parity of the bits received and
compares it with the received parity bit for error checking
 The UART of the receiving device discards the ‘Start’, ‘Stop’ and ‘Parity’ bit from the59
received bit stream and converts the received serial bit data to a word
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – Universal Asynchronous Receiver

Transmitter (UART)

TXD TXD
UART UART
RXD RXD

TXD: Transmitter Line

RXD: Receiver Line

60
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – 1-Wire Interface

 An asynchronous half-duplex communication protocol developed by Maxim Dallas
Semiconductor (http://www.maxim-ic.com)
 It is also known as Dallas 1-Wire® protocol. It makes use of only a single signal line
(wire) called DQ for communication and follows the master-slave communication
model
 The 1-Wire interface supports a single master and one or more slave devices on the
bus
 The 1-Wire is capable of carrying power to the slave device apart from carrying the
signals. Slave devices incorporate internal capacitor to generate power to operate the
device from the 1-Wire
 Every 1-Wire device contains a globally unique 64 bit identification number stored
within it. This unique identification number can be used for addressing individual
devices present in the bus in case there are multiple slave devices connected to the 1-
Wire bus
 The identifier has three parts: an 8 bit family code, a 48 bit serial number and an 8 bit
CRC computed from the first 56 bits
61
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – 1-Wire Interface

Vcc

4.7K

DQ Slave 1
Port Pin
1-Wire Device
(Eg: DS2760 Battery
GND
monitor IC )
Master
(Microprocessor/
Controller) DQ Slave 2
1-Wire Device
(Eg: DS2431 1024
GND GND
Bit EEPROM )
62
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – 1-Wire Interface

The sequence of operation for communicating with a 1-Wire slave
device is:
1. Master device sends a ‘Reset’ pulse on the 1-Wire bus.
2. Slave device(s) present on the bus respond with a ‘Presence’
pulse.
3. Master device sends a ROM Command (Net Address Command
followed by the 64 bit address of the device). This addresses the
slave device(s) to which it wants to initiate a communication
4. Master device sends a read/write function command to
read/write the internal memory or register of the slave device.
5. Master initiates a Read data /Write data from the device or to the
device 63
 The Typical Embedded System
On-board Communication Interface – 1-Wire Interface
 All communication over the 1-Wire bus is master initiated
 The communication over the 1-Wire bus is divided into timeslots of 60 microseconds
 The ‘Reset’ pulse occupies 8 time slots. For starting a communication, the master
asserts the reset pulse by pulling the 1-Wire bus ‘LOW’ for at least 8 time slots (480µs)
 If a ‘Slave’ device is present on the bus and is ready for communication it should
respond to the master with a ‘Presence’ pulse, within 60µs of the release of the ‘Reset’
pulse by the master
 The slave device(s) responds with a ‘Presence’ pulse by pulling the 1-Wire bus ‘LOW’
for a minimum of 1 time slot (60µs)
 For writing a bit value of 1 on the 1-Wire bus, the bus master pulls the bus for 1 to 15µs
and then releases the bus for the rest of the time slot
 A bit value of ‘0’ is written on the bus by master pulling the bus for a minimum of 1
time slot (60µs) and a maximum of 2 time slots (120µs)
 To Read a bit from the slave device, the master pulls the bus ‘LOW’ for 1 to 15µs
 If the slave wants to send a bit value ‘1’ in response to the read request from the slave, it
simply releases the bus for the rest of the time slot
 If the slave wants to send a bit value ‘0’, it pulls the bus ‘LOW’ for the rest of the time64
slot.
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – Parallel Interface

 Parallel interface is normally used for communicating with peripheral devices which are
memory mapped to the host of the system
 The host processor/controller of the embedded system contains a parallel bus and the
device which supports parallel bus can directly connect to this bus system
 The communication through the parallel bus is controlled by the control signal interface
between the device and the host
 The ‘Control Signals’ for communication includes ‘Read/Write’ signal and device select
signal
 The device normally contains a device select line and the device becomes active only
when this line is asserted by the host processor
 The direction of data transfer (Host to Device or Device to Host) can be controlled
through the control signal lines for ‘Read’ and ‘Write’
 Only the host processor has control over the ‘Read’ and ‘Write’ control signals

65
 The Typical Embedded System

On-board Communication Interface – Parallel Interface

D0 to Data Bus
Dx-1 Peripheral Device
RD\ RD\ (Eg: ADC)
WR\ WR\
Host Control Signals CS\
(Microprocessor/
Controller) Chip Select

A0 to Address Bus Address De-coder

Ay-1 Circuit

x: Data bus width

y: Address Bus width
66
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – RS-232 C & RS-485
 RS-232 C (Recommended Standard number 232, revision C from the Electronic
Industry Association) is a legacy, full duplex, wired, asynchronous serial
communication interface
 RS-232 extends the UART communication signals for external data communication.
 UART uses the standard TTL/CMOS logic (Logic ‘High’ corresponds to bit value 1
and Logic ‘LOW’ corresponds to bit value 0) for bit transmission whereas RS232 use
the EIA standard for bit transmission. As per EIA standard, a logic ‘0’ is represented
with voltage between +3 and +25V and a logic ‘1’ is represented with voltage between
-3 and -25V. In EIA standard, logic ‘0’ is known as ‘Space’ and logic ‘1’ as ‘Mark’.
 The RS232 interface define various handshaking and control signals for
communication apart from the ‘Transmit’ and ‘Receive’ signal lines for data
communication. RS-232 supports two different types of connectors, namely; DB-9: 9-
Pin connector and DB-25: 25-Pin connector.
1 13
1 5

6 9 14 25
DB-25
DB-9 67
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – RS-232 C & RS-485

Pin No:
Pin Name (For DB-9 Description
Connector)
TXD 3 Transmit Pin. Used for Transmitting Serial Data
RXD 2 Receive Pin. Used for Receiving serial Data
RTS 7 Request to send.
CTS 8 Clear To Send
DSR 6 Data Set ready
GND 5 Signal Ground
DCD 1 Data Carrier Detect
DTR 4 Data Terminal Ready
RI 9 Ring Indicator

68
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – RS-232 C & RS-485
 RS-232 is a point-to-point communication interface and the devices involved in RS-232
communication are called ‘Data Terminal Equipment (DTE)’ and ‘Data Communication
Equipment (DCE)’
 If no data flow control is required, only TXD and RXD signal lines and ground line (GND) are
required for data transmission and reception. The RXD pin of DCE should be connected to the
TXD pin of DTE and vice versa for proper data transmission.
 If hardware data flow control is required for serial transmission, various control signal lines of
the RS-232 connection are used appropriately. The control signals are implemented mainly for
modem communication and some of them may be irrelevant for other type of devices
 The Request To Send (RTS) and Clear To Send (CTS) signals co-ordinate the communication
between DTE and DCE. Whenever the DTE has a data to send, it activates the RTS line and if the
DCE is ready to accept the data, it activates the CTS line
 The Data Terminal Ready (DTR) signal is activated by DTE when it is ready to accept data. The
Data Set Ready (DSR) is activated by DCE when it is ready for establishing a communication
link. DTR should be in the activated state before the activation of DSR
 The Data Carrier Detect (DCD) is used by the DCE to indicate the DTE that a good signal is
being received
 Ring Indicator (RI) is a modem specific signal line for indicating an incoming call on the
telephone line
69
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – RS-232 C & RS-485
 As per the EIA standard RS-232 C supports baudrates up to 20Kbps (Upper limit 19.2Kbps) The
commonly used baudrates by devices are 300bps, 1200bps, 2400bps, 9600bps, 11.52Kbps and
19.2Kbps
 The maximum operating distance supported in RS-232 communication is 50 feet at the highest
supported baudrate.
 Embedded devices contain a UART for serial communication and they generate signal levels
conforming to TTL/CMOS logic. A level translator IC like MAX 232 from Maxim Dallas
semiconductor is used for converting the signal lines from the UART to RS-232 signal lines for
communication. On the receiving side the received data is converted back to digital logic level by
a converter IC. Converter chips contain converters for both transmitter and receiver
 RS-232 uses single ended data transfer and supports only point-to-point communication and not
suitable for multi-drop communication
 RS-422 is another serial interface standard from EIA for differential data communication. It
supports data rates up to 100Kbps and distance up to 400 ft
 RS-422 supports multi-drop communication with one transmitter device and receiver devices up
to 10
 RS-485 is the enhanced version of RS-422 and it supports multi-drop communication with up to
32 transmitting devices (drivers) and 32 receiving devices on the bus. The communication
between devices in the bus makes use of the ‘addressing’ mechanism to identify slave devices
70
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – Universal Serial Bus (USB)

 Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a wired high speed serial

bus for data communication
 The USB communication system follows a star topology Peripheral
Device 2
with a USB host at the center and one or more USB
peripheral devices/USB hosts connected to it
Peripheral
 A USB host can support connections up to 127, including Peripheral
Device 1
USB Host
Device 3
(Hub)
slave peripheral devices and other USB hosts
 USB transmits data in packet format. Each data packet has
a standard format. The USB communication is a host USB Host
(Hub)
initiated one
 The USB Host contains a host controller which is Peripheral Peripheral
Device 4 Device 5
responsible for controlling the data communication,
including establishing connectivity with USB slave devices,
packetizing and formatting the data packet. There are
different standards for implementing the USB Host Control
interface; namely Open Host Control Interface (OHCI) and
Universal Host Control Interface (UHCI) 71
 The Typical Embedded System

External Communication Interface – Universal Serial Bus (USB)

 The Physical connection between a USB peripheral device and master device is
established with a USB cable
 The USB cable supports communication distance of up to 5 meters
 The USB standard uses two different types of connectors namely ‘Type A’ and ‘Type
B’ at the ends of the USB cable for connecting the USB peripheral device and host
device
 ‘Type A’ connector is used for upstream connection (connection with host) and ‘Type
B’ connector is used for downstream connection (connection with slave device)

Pin No: Pin Name Description

1 VBUS Carries power (5V)
2 D- Differential data carrier line
3 D+ Differential data carrier line
4 GND Ground signal line
72
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – Universal Serial Bus (USB)
 Each USB device contains a Product ID (PID) and a Vendor ID (VID)
 The PID and VID are embedded into the USB chip by the USB device manufacturer
 The VID for a device is supplied by the USB standards forum
 PID and VID are essential for loading the drivers corresponding to a USB device for
communication
 USB supports four different types of data transfers, namely; Control, Bulk, Isochronous and
Interrupt
 Control transfer is used by USB system software to query, configure and issue commands to the
USB device
 Bulk transfer is used for sending a block of data to a device. Bulk transfer supports error
checking and correction. Transferring data to a printer is an example for bulk transfer.
 Isochronous data transfer is used for real time data communication. In Isochronous transfer,
data is transmitted as streams in real time. Isochronous transfer doesn’t support error checking
and re-transmission of data in case of any transmission loss
 Interrupt transfer is used for transferring small amount of data. Interrupt transfer mechanism
makes use of polling technique to see whether the USB device has any data to send
 The frequency of polling is determined by the USB device and it varies from 1 to 255
milliseconds. Devices like Mouse and Keyboard, which transmits fewer amounts of data, uses 73
Interrupt transfer.
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
 A wired, isochronous high speed serial communication bus. It is also known as High
Performance Serial Bus (HPSB)
 The research on 1394 was started by Apple Inc in 1985 and the standard for this was
coined by IEEE.
 The Apple Inc’s (www.apple.com) implementation of 1394 protocol is popularly
known as Firewire.
 i.LINK is the 1394 implementation from Sony Corporation (www.sony.net) and
Lynx is the implementation from Texas Instruments (www.ti.com)
 1394 supports peer-to-peer connection and point-to-multipoint communication allowing 63
devices to be connected on the bus in a tree topology
 The 1394 standard supports a data rate of 400 to 3200Mbits/Second
 IEEE 1394 uses differential data transfer and the interface cable supports 3 types of connectors,
namely; 4-pin connector, 6-pin connector (alpha connector) and 9 pin connector (beta
connector)
 The 6 and 9 pin connectors carry power also to support external devices. It can supply
unregulated power in the range of 24 to 30V (The Apple implementation is for battery operated
devices and it can supply a voltage in the range 9 to 12V)
74
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – IEEE 1394 (Firewire)

Pin Pin No: Pin No: Pin No:

Name (4 Pin (6 Pin (9 Pin Description
Connecto Connect Connector)
r) or)
Power 1 8 Unregulated DC supply. 24 to 30V
Signal 2 6 Ground connection
Ground
TPB- 1 3 1 Differential Signal line for Signal Line B
TPB+ 2 4 2 Differential Signal line for Signal Line B
TPA- 3 5 3 Differential Signal line for Signal Line A
TPA+ 4 6 4 Differential Signal line for Signal Line A
Shield for the differential signal line A. Normally
TPA(S) 5 grounded
Shield for the differential signal line B. Normally
TPB(S) 9 grounded
NC 7 No connection

75
 The Typical Embedded System

External Communication Interface – IEEE 1394 (Firewire)

 The IEEE 1394 connector contains two differential data transfer lines
namely A and B
 The differential lines of A are connected to B (TPA+ to TPB+ and TPA- to
TPB-) and vice versa
 Unlike USB interface (Except USB OTG), IEEE 1394 doesn’t require a host
for communicating between devices. Example, a scanner can be directly
connected to a printer for printing
 The data rate supported by 1394 is far higher than the one supported by
USB2.0 interface
 1394 is a popular communication interface for connecting embedded devices
like ‘Digital Camera’, ‘Camcorder’, ‘Scanners’ with desktop Computers for
data transfer and storage

76
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – Infrared (IrDA)
 A serial, half duplex, line of sight based wireless technology for data communication
between devices
 Infrared communication technique makes use of Infrared waves of the electromagnetic
spectrum for transmitting the data
 IrDA supports point-point and point-to-multipoint communication, provided all devices
involved in the communication are within the line of sight
 The typical communication range for IrDA lies in the range 10cm to 1 m
 IR supports data rates ranging from 9600bits/second to 16Mbps. Depending on the
speed of data transmission IR is classified into Serial IR (SIR), Medium IR (MIR), Fast
IR (FIR), Very Fast IR (VFIR) and Ultra Fast IR (UFIR)
 SIR supports transmission rates ranging from 9600bps to 115.2kbps. MIR supports data
rates of 0.576Mbps and 1.152Mbps. FIR supports data rates up to 4Mbps. VFIR is
designed to support high data rates up to 16Mbps. The UFIR specs are under
development and it is targeting a data rate up to 100Mbps
 IrDA communication involves a transmitter unit for transmitting the data over IR and a
receiver for receiving the data. Infrared Light Emitting Diode (LED) is used as the IR
source for transmitter and at the receiving end a photodiode is used as the receiver
77
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – Bluetooth
 Low cost, low power, short range wireless technology for data and voice communication
 Bluetooth operates at 2.4GHz of the Radio Frequency spectrum and uses the Frequency Hopping
Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technique for communication.
 Bluetooth supports a theoretical maximum data rate of up to 1Mbps and a range of approximately
30 feet for data communication
 Bluetooth communication has two essential parts; a physical link part and a protocol part. The
physical link is responsible for the physical transmission of data between devices supporting
Bluetooth communication and protocol part is responsible for defining the rules of communication
 The physical link works on the Wireless principle making use of RF waves for communication
 Bluetooth enabled devices essentially contain a Bluetooth wireless radio for the transmission and
reception of data
 The rules governing the Bluetooth communication is implemented in the ‘Bluetooth protocol
stack’. The Bluetooth communication IC holds the stack
 Each Bluetooth device will have a 48 bit unique identification number. Bluetooth communication
follows packet based data transfer
 Bluetooth supports point-to-point (device to device) and point-to-multipoint (device to multiple
device broadcasting) wireless communication. The point-to-point communication follows the
master-slave relationship. A Bluetooth device can function as either master or slave
 A network formed with one Bluetooth device as master and more than one device as slaves is
78
known as Piconet
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – Wi-Fi
 The popular wireless communication technique for networked communication of devices
 Wi-Fi follows the IEEE 802.11 standard
 Wi-Fi is intended for network communication and it supports Internet Protocol (IP) based
communication
 Wi-Fi based communications require an intermediate agent called Wi-Fi router/Wireless Access
point to manage the communications
 The Wi-Fi router is responsible for restricting the access to a network, assigning IP address to
devices on the network, routing data packets to the intended devices on the network
 Wi-Fi enabled devices contain a wireless adaptor for transmitting and receiving data in the form
of radio signals through an antenna
 Wi-Fi operates at 2.4GHZ or 5GHZ of radio spectrum and they co-exist with other ISM band
devices like Bluetooth
 A Wi-Fi network is identified with a Service Set Identifier (SSID). A Wi-Fi device can connect
to a network by selecting the SSID of the network and by providing the credentials if the
network is security enabled
 Wi-Fi networks implements different security mechanisms for authentication and data transfer
 Wireless Equivalency Protocol (WEP), Wireless Protected Access (WPA) etc are some of the
security mechanisms supported by Wi-Fi networks in data communication
79
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi Router

Device 1
Device 2 Device 3

80
 The Typical Embedded System
External Communication Interface – ZigBee
 Low power, low cost, wireless network communication protocol based on the IEEE
802.15.4-2006 standard
 ZigBee is targeted for low power, low data rate and secure applications for Wireless
Personal Area Networking (WPAN)
 The ZigBee specifications support a robust mesh network containing multiple nodes.
This networking strategy makes the network reliable by permitting messages to travel
through a number of different paths to get from one node to another.
 ZigBee operates worldwide at the unlicensed bands of Radio spectrum, mainly at
2.400 to 2.484 GHz, 902 to 928 MHz and 868.0 to 868.6 MHz
 ZigBee Supports an operating distance of up to 100 meters and a data rate of 20 to
250Kbps
 ZigBee is primarily targeting application areas like Home & Industrial Automation,
Energy Management, Home control/security, Medical/Patient tracking, Logistics &
Asset tracking and sensor networks & active RFID
 Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), smoke and detectors, wireless telemetry, HVAC
control, heating control, Lighting controls, Environmental controls, etc are examples
for applications which can make use of the ZigBee technology 81
 The Typical Embedded System

External Communication Interface – ZigBee

In the ZigBee terminology, each ZigBee device falls
under any one of the following ZigBee device category
ZED ZED
ZigBee Coordinator (ZC)/Network Coordinator:
The ZigBee coordinator acts as the root of the ZigBee
network. The ZC is responsible for initiating the ZED
ZigBee network and it has the capability to store
information about the network
ZR ZC ZR
ZigBee Router (ZR)/Full function Device (FFD):
Responsible for passing information from device to
another device or to another ZR ZED ZED

ZigBee End Device (ZED)/Reduced Function

Device (RFD): End device containing ZigBee
functionality for data communication. It can talk only
with a ZR or ZC and doesn’t have the capability to act
as a mediator for transferring data from one device to 82
another.
 The Typical Embedded System

External Communication Interface – General Packet Radio Service

(GPRS)
 A communication technique for transferring data over a mobile communication network
like GSM
 Data is sent as packets. The transmitting device splits the data into several related packets.
At the receiving end the data is re-constructed by combining the received data packets
 GPRS supports a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 171.2kbps
 In GPRS communication, the radio channel is concurrently shared between several users
instead of dedicating a radio channel to a cell phone user. The GPRS communication
divides the channel into 8 timeslots and transmits data over the available channel
 GPRS supports Internet Protocol (IP), Point to Point Protocol (PPP) and X.25 protocols
for communication.
 GPRS is mainly used by mobile enabled embedded devices for data communication. The
device should support the necessary GPRS hardware like GPRS modem and GPRS radio
 GPRS is an old technology and it is being replaced by new generation data communication
techniques like EDGE, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) etc which offers
higher bandwidths for communication
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