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2486AA–AVR–02/2013
ATmega8(L)
Sending Frames with
9 Data Bits
If 9-bit characters are used (UCSZ = 7), the ninth bit must be written to the TXB8 bit in UCSRB
before the Low byte of the character is written to UDR. The following code examples show a
transmit function that handles 9-bit characters. For the assembly code, the data to be sent is
assumed to be stored in registers R17:R16.
Note:
1. These transmit functions are written to be general functions. They can be optimized if the con-
tents of the UCSRB is static. That is, only the TXB8 bit of the UCSRB Register is used after
initialization
The ninth bit can be used for indicating an address frame when using multi processor communi-
cation mode or for other protocol handling as for example synchronization.
Transmitter Flags and
Interrupts
The USART Transmitter has two flags that indicate its state: USART Data Register Empty
(UDRE) and Transmit Complete (TXC). Both flags can be used for generating interrupts.
The Data Register Empty (UDRE) Flag indicates whether the transmit buffer is ready to receive
new data. This bit is set when the transmit buffer is empty, and cleared when the transmit buffer
contains data to be transmitted that has not yet been moved into the Shift Register. For compat-
ibility with future devices, always write this bit to zero when writing the UCSRA Register.
When the Data Register empty Interrupt Enable (UDRIE) bit in UCSRB is written to one, the
USART Data Register Empty Interrupt will be executed as long as UDRE is set (provided that
global interrupts are enabled). UDRE is cleared by writing UDR. When interrupt-driven data
transmission is used, the Data Register empty Interrupt routine must either write new data to
USART_Transmit:
; Wait for empty transmit buffer
sbis
UCSRA,UDRE
rjmp
USART_Transmit
; Copy ninth bit from r17 to TXB8
cbi
UCSRB,TXB8
sbrc
r17,0
sbi
UCSRB,TXB8
; Put LSB data (r16) into buffer, sends the data
out
UDR,r16
ret
C Code Example
void
USART_Transmit( unsigned int data )
{
/* Wait for empty transmit buffer */
while
( !( UCSRA & (1<<UDRE)) )
;
/* Copy ninth bit to TXB8 */
UCSRB &= ~(1<<TXB8);
if ( data & 0x0100 )
UCSRB |= (1<<TXB8);
/* Put data into buffer, sends the data */
UDR = data;
}