Philips Semiconductors
Product specification
SCC2698B
Enhanced octal universal asynchronous
receiver/transmitter (Octal UART)
2000 Jan 31
9
the bit time clock (1X clock mode). If RxD is sampled high, the start
bit is invalid and the search for a valid start bit begins again. If RxD
is still low, a valid start bit is assumed. The receiver then continues
to sample the input at one–bit time intervals at the theoretical center
of the bit. When the proper number of data bits and parity bit (if any)
have been assembled, with one half–stop bit the character will be
considered complete. The least significant bit is received first. The
data is then transferred to the Receive FIFO and the RxRDY bit in
the SR is set to a 1. This condition can be programmed to generate
an interrupt at MPO or MPP2 and INTRN. If the character length is
less than 8 bits, the most significant unused bits in the RxFIFO are
set to zero.
Receiver FIFO
The RxFIFO consists of a First–In–First–Out (FIFO) stack with a
capacity of 3 characters. Data is loaded from the receive shift regis-
ter into the topmost empty position of the FIFO. The RxRDY bit in
the status register is set whenever one or more characters are avail-
able to be read, and a FFULL status bit is set if all three (3) stack
positions are filled with data. Either of these bits can be selected to
cause an interrupt. A read of the RxFIFO outputs the data at the top
of the FIFO. After the read cycle, the data FIFO and its associated
status bits (see below) are ‘popped’ thus emptying a FIFO position
for new data.
Receiver Status Bits
There are five (5) status bits that are evaluated with each byte (or
character) received: received break, framing error, parity error, over-
run error, and change of break. The first three are appended to
each byte and stored in the RxFIFO. The last two are not necessar-
ily related to the byte being received or a byte that is in the RxFIFO.
They are however developed by the receiver state machine.
The received break, framing error, parity error and overrun error (if
any) are strobed into the RxFIFO at the received character bound-
ary, before the RxRDY status bit is set. For character mode (see
below) status reporting the SR (Status Register) indicates the condi-
tion of these bits for the character that is the next to be read from the
FIFO
The ”received break” will always be associated with a zero byte in
the RxFIFO. It means that zero character was a break character
and not a zero data byte. The reception of a break condition will
always set the ”change of break” (see below) status bit in the Inter-
rupt Status Register (ISR). The Change of break condition is reset
by a reset error status command in the command register
Break Detection
If a break condition is detected (RxD is Low for the entire character
including the stop bit), a character consisting of all zeros will be
loaded into the RxFIFO and the received break bit in the SR is set to
1. The change of break bit also sets in the ISR The RxD input must
return to high for two (2) clock edges of the X1 crystal clock for the
receiver to recognize the end of the break condition and begin the
search for a start bit.
This will usually require a high time of one X1 clock period or 3 X1
edges since the clock of the controller is not synchronous to the X1
clock.
Framing Error
A framing error occurs when a non–zero character whose parity bit
(if used) and stop; bit are zero. If RxD remains low for one half of
the bit period after the stop bit was sampled, then the receiver oper-
ates as if the start bit of the next character had been detected.
The parity error indicates that the receiver–generated parity was not
the same as that sent by the transmitter.
The framing, parity and received break status bits are reset when
the associated data byte is read from the RxFIFO since these “error”
conditions are attached to the byte that has the error
Overrun Error
The overrun error occurs when the RxFIFO is full, the receiver shift
register is full, and another start bit is detected. At this moment the
receiver has 4 valid characters and the start bit of the 5th has been
seen. At this point the host has approximately 6/16–bit time to read
a byte from the RxFIFO or the overrun condition will be set. The 5th
character then overruns the 4th and the 6th the 5th and so on until
an open position in the RxFIFO is seen. (“seen” meaning at least
one byte was read from the RxFIFO.)
Overrun is cleared by a use of the “error reset” command in the
command register.
The fundamental meaning of the overrun is that data has been lost.
Data in the RxFIFO remains valid. The receiver will begin placing
characters in the RxFIFO as soon as a position becomes vacant.
Note: Precaution must be taken when reading an overrun FIFO.
There will be 3 valid characters in the receiver FIFO. There will be
one character in the receiver shift register. However it will NOT be
known if more than one “over–running” character has been received
since the overrun bit was set. The 4th character is received and
read as valid but it will not be known how many characters were lost
between the two characters of the 3rd and 4th reads of the RxFIFO
The ”Change of break” means that either a break has been detected
or that the break condition has been cleared. This bit is available in
the ISR. The break change bit being set in the ISR and the received
break bit being set in the SR will signal the beginning of a break. At
the termination of the break condition only the change of break in
the ISR will be set. After the break condition is detected the ter-
mination of the break will only be recognized when the RxD input
has returned to the high state for two successive edges of the 1x
clock; 1/2 to 1 bit time (see above).
The receiver is disabled by reset or via CR commands. A disabled
receiver will not interrupt the host CPU under any circumstance in
the normal mode of operation. If the receiver is in the multi–drop or
special mode, it will be partially enabled and thus may cause an
interrupt. Refer to section on Wake–Up and the register description
for MR1 for more information.
Receiver Status Modes (block and character)
In addition to the data word, three status bits (parity error, framing
error, and received break) are also appended to each data character
in the FIFO (overrun is not). Status can be provided in two ways, as
programmed by the error mode control bit in the mode register. In
the ‘character’ mode, status is provided on a character–by–charac-
ter basis; the status applies only to the character at the top of the
FIFO. In the ‘block’ mode, the status provided in the SR for these
three bits is the logical–OR of the status for all characters coming to
the top of the FIFO since the last ‘reset error’ command was issued.
In either mode reading the SR does not affect the FIFO. The FIFO
is ‘popped’ only when the RxFIFO is read. Therefore the status
register should be read prior to reading the FIFO.
Receiver Flow Control
The receiver can control the deactivation of RTS. If programmed to
operate in this mode, the RTSN output will be negated when a valid
start bit was received and the FIFO is full. When a FIFO position
becomes available, the RTSN output will be re–asserted automati-
cally. This feature can be used to prevent an overrun, in the receiv-
er, by connecting the RTSN output to the CTSN input of the
transmitting device.