SERIAL COMMUNICATION (SYNCHRONOUS AND
ASYNCHRONOUS)
Serial communication is defined as the transmission or reception of data
one bit at a time. Serial communication requires only one line for the data, a
second line for ground and possibly a third line for the clock. Since serial
communication requires less physical wires, it is more suitable for transmitting
data over longer distances. Serial communication is of two types:
(a) Synchronous serial communication
(b) Asynchronous serial communication
Synchronous serial communication uses a clock signal, which is common to
the receiver and transmitter, to indicate when each bit is being transmitted,
whereas Asynchronous serial communication use a start and stop bit to
synchronous transmitter with receiver. The advantage of synchronous serial
communication system over asynchronous serial is its fast data transmission
rate. In serial communication the data is rate is known as the baud rate, which
simply means the number of bits transmitted per second.
The 8051 microcontroller contains in-built serial I/O port which provides
both synchronous and Asynchronous serial communication. The Serial I/O
ports provide a means to transfer the bytes serially between microcontroller and
external devices such as a PC or another microcontroller. The serial port
transfers the data bytes from the microcontroller to output one bit at a time.
Similarly it accepts serial data from output, makes a word (or byte) and present
it to the controller.
Serial communication can be half duplex or full duplex. Full duplex
communication means that a device can receive and transmit data at the same
time. Half duplex means that the device cannot send and receive at the same
time. It can do them both, but not at the same time. Half duplex serial
communication needs at a minimum two wires, signal ground and the data line.
Full duplex serial communication needs at a minimum three wires, signal
ground, transmit data line, and receive data line. The 8051 microcontroller
support full duplex serial communication.
The microcontroller provides various types of serial interface systems to
communicate with PC and different types of serial peripheral devices. The
selection of each interface depends upon the particular task, because each
interface has its own advantages and disadvantages. The microcontroller
provides both synchronous and asynchronous interfaces.
Synchronous Serial Interfaces
Synchronous serial interfaces are used for short distance communication
between microcontroller and interfaced device. Examples of synchronous serial
communication system (or interfaces) provided by microcontrollers are:
a) SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface): A simple 4-wire (one for data
receiving, one for data sending, one for synchronization and one for
device selection) serial communications interface to enable the
controllers and peripheral devices to communicate each other. It is full
duplex connection, which means that data is sent and received
simultaneously.
b) I2C (inter-IC control): A simple 2-wire (one for data transfer and second
one for synchronization) serial communications interface to enable the
controllers and peripheral devices to communicate each other. It is
developed by Philips. It supports 8 bit applications and is widely used in
consumer electronics, automotive and industrial applications.
c) I2S (inter-IC sound): A simple 3-line serial communications (a line with
two time-division multiplexing (TDM) data channels, a word select line,
and a clock line) especially used for digital audio.
Asynchronous Serial Interfaces
Asynchronous Serial interfaces are used for communication via cables over
large distance ranging from few meters to a few kilometers. Examples of
asynchronous serial communication system (or interfaces) provided by
microcontrollers are:
a) UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter): A UART is a
serial port interface for asynchronous communications. It is one of the
useful features of microcontroller for communicating serial data (text,
numbers, etc.) to PC or other peripherals. Almost all microcontrollers
provide asynchronous interface with a UART. The device changes
incoming parallel information (within the microcontroller/PC) to serial
data which can be sent on a communication line. UART functionality is
extremely useful for adding an LCD, boot loader, wireless bluetooth, code
debugger, test sensors etc. to microcontroller.
b) USART (Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver
Transmitter): A USART is also a serial port interface that support both
synchronous and asynchronous communications. Some microcontrollers
also provide synchronous/asynchronous interface with a USART.
Communications using a USART are typically much faster (as much as
16 times) than with a UART.
