Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Tutorial

04/04/2015
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Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)

Serial Peripheral Interface, or SPI, is a very common communication protocol used
for two-way communication between two devices. A standard SPI bus consists of 4
signals, Master Out Slave In (MOSI), Master In Slave Out (MISO), the clock (SCK),
and Slave Select (SS). Unlike an asynchronous serial interface, SPI is not
symmetric. An SPI bus has one master and one or more slaves. The master can
talk to any slave on the bus, but each slave can only talk to the master. Each slave
on the bus must have it's own unique slave select signal. The master uses the
slave select signals to select which slave it will be talking to. Since SPI also
includes a clock signal, both devices don't need to agree on a data rate before
hand. The only requirement is that the clock is lower than the maximum frequency
for all devices involved.
Example SPI Transfer

When the master of the SPI bus wants to initiate a transfer, it must first pull the SS
signal low for the slave it wants to communicate with. Once the SS signal is low,
that slave will be listening on the bus. The master is then free to start sending data.
There are 4 different SPI bus standards that all have to do with the SCK signal. The
4 modes are broken down into two parameters, CPOL and CPHA. CPOL stands for
Clock POLarity and designates the default value (high/low) of the SCK signal when
the bus is idle. CPHA stands for Clock PHAse and determines which edge of the
clock data is sampled (rising/falling). The data sheet for any device will specify
these parameters so you can adjust accordingly. The most common settings are
CPOL=0 (idle low) and CPHA=0 (sample rising edge).
Here is an example transfer with CPOL=0 and CPHA=0.
https://embeddedmicro.com/tutorials/mojo/serial-peripheral-interface-spi
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The bits in a SPI transmission are sent LSB first.

Any SPI transmission is controlled solely by the master. The master generates the
clock and controls the slave select signal(s). This means that the slave has no way
of sending data to the master on its own!
Each SPI transfer is full-duplex, meaning that data is sent from the master to the
slave and from the slave to the master at the same time. There is no way for a
slave to opt-out of sending data when the master makes a transfer, however,
devices will send dummy bytes (usually all 1's or all 0's) when communication
should be one way. If the master is reading data in for a slave, the slave will know
to ignore the data being sent by the master.
Devices that use SPI typically will send/receive multiple bytes each time the SS
signal goes low. This way the SS signal acts as a way to frame a transmission. For
example, if you had a flash memory that had an SPI bus and you want to read
some data, the SS signal would go low, the master would send the command to
read memory at a certain address, and as long as the master kept SS low and
toggling SCK the flash memory would keep sending out data. Once SS returned
high the flash memory knows to end the read command.
Since the MISO signal can be connected to multiple devices, each device will only
drive the line when its SS signal is low. This is shown by the grey area.
SPI Slave
In the Mojo Base Project, the file spi_slave.v contains the SPI module used to
interface with the AVR. The AVR, in this case, is the master and the FPGA is the
slave. The reason the AVR is the master is because the SPI bus is used to transfer
data from the analog pins. Since the FPGA has no way of knowing when the data
would be available, the FPGA would have to keep asking the AVR if it had any data.
By making the AVR the master, it allows it to send the data right when it's ready.
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module spi_slave(
inputclk,
inputrst,
inputss,
inputmosi,
outputmiso,
inputsck,
outputdone,
input[7:0]din,
output[7:0]dout
)
;
r
e
gmosi_d,mosi_q;
r
e
gss_d,ss_q;
r
e
gsck_d,sck_q;
r
e
gsck_old_d,sck_old_q;
r
e
g[7:0]data_d,data_q;
r
e
gdone_d,done_q;
r
e
g[2:0]bit_ct_d,bit_ct_q;
r
e
g[7:0]dout_d,dout_q;
r
e
gmiso_d,miso_q;
assign miso=miso_q;
assign done=done_q;
assign dout=dout_q;
always @(*)begin
ss_d=ss;
mosi_d=mosi;
miso_d=miso_q;
sck_d=sck;
sck_old_d=sck_q;
data_d=data_q;
done_d=1'b0;
bit_ct_d=bit_ct_q;
dout_d=dout_q;
if (ss_q)begin
bit_ct_d=3'b0;
data_d=din;
miso_d=data_q[7];
end else begin
if (!sck_old_q&&sck_q)begin //risingedge
data_d={data_q[6:0],mosi_q};
bit_ct_d=bit_ct_q+1'b1;
if (bit_ct_q==3'b111)begin
dout_d={data_q[6:0],mosi_q};
done_d=1'b1;
data_d=din;
end
end else if (sck_old_q&&!sck_q)begin //falling
miso_d=data_q[7];
end
end
end
always @(posedge clk)begin
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if (rst)begin
done_q<=1'b0;
bit_ct_q<=3'b0;
dout_q<=8'b0;
miso_q<=1'b1;
end else begin
done_q<=done_d;
bit_ct_q<=bit_ct_d;
dout_q<=dout_d;
miso_q<=miso_d;
end
sck_q<=sck_d;
mosi_q<=mosi_d;
ss_q<=ss_d;
data_q<=data_d;
sck_old_q<=sck_old_d;
end
endmodule
This is module assumes CPOL = 0 and CPHA = 0.

It waits for SS to go low. Once SS is low, it starts shifting data into the data_d/_q
register. Once eight bits have been shifted in it signals that it has new data on
dout. On the falling edges of the clock, it shifts out the data that was provided by din
at the beginning of the transmission.
SPI Master
Our Clock/Visualizer Shield, uses a Real-Time Clock (RTC) device that provides the
Mojo with the current time. The RTC is connected to the Mojo through an SPI bus.
In this case, the FPGA on the Mojo is the master and the RTC is the slave.
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module spi#(parameterCLK_DIV=2)(
inputclk,
inputrst,
inputmiso,
outputmosi,
outputsck,
inputstart,
input[7:0]data_in,
output[7:0]data_out,
outputbusy,
outputnew_data
)
;
l
o
calparamSTATE_SIZE=2;
l
o
calparamIDLE=2'd0,
WAIT_HALF=2'd1,
TRANSFER=2'd2;
r
e
g[STATE_SIZE-1:0]state_d,state_q;
r
e
g[7:0]data_d,data_q;
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r
e
g[CLK_DIV-1:0]sck_d,sck_q;
r
e
gmosi_d,mosi_q;
r
e
g[2:0]ctr_d,ctr_q;
r
e
gnew_data_d,new_data_q;
r
e
g[7:0]data_out_d,data_out_q;
assign mosi=mosi_q;
assign sck=(~sck_q[CLK_DIV-1])&p;(state_q==
assign busy=state_q!=IDLE;
assign data_out=data_out_q;
assign new_data=new_data_q;
always @(*)begin
sck_d=sck_q;
data_d=data_q;
mosi_d=mosi_q;
ctr_d=ctr_q;
new_data_d=1'b0;
data_out_d=data_out_q;
state_d=state_q;
case (state_q)
IDLE:begin
sck_d=4'b0;
ctr_d=3'b0;
if (start==1'b1)begin
data_d=data_in;
state_d=WAIT_HALF;
end
end
WAIT_HALF:begin
sck_d=sck_q+1'b1;
if (sck_q=={CLK_DIV-1{1'b1}})begin
sck_d=1'b0;
state_d=TRANSFER;
end
end
TRANSFER:begin
sck_d=sck_q+1'b1;
if (sck_q==4'b0000)begin
mosi_d=data_q[7];
end else if (sck_q=={CLK_DIV-1{1'b1}})
data_d={data_q[6:0],miso};
end else if (sck_q=={CLK_DIV{1'b1}})begin
ctr_d=ctr_q+1'b1;
if (ctr_q==3'b111)begin
state_d=IDLE;
data_out_d=data_q;
new_data_d=1'b1;
end
end
end
endcase
end
always @(posedge clk)begin
if (rst)begin
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ctr_q<=3'b0;
data_q<=8'b0;
sck_q<=4'b0;
mosi_q<=1'b0;
state_q<=IDLE;
data_out_q<=8'b0;
new_data_q<=1'b0;
end else begin
ctr_q<=ctr_d;
data_q<=data_d;
sck_q<=sck_d;
mosi_q<=mosi_d;
state_q<=state_d;
data_out_q<=data_out_d;
new_data_q<=new_data_d;
end
end
endmodule
In this case CPOL = 0 and CPHA = 1.

The overall idea is the same, however, the FPGA now needs to generate the SCK
signal. The parameter CLK_DIV is used to specify how much the FPGA's clock
should be divided. The default value is 2, which means that the frequency of SCK
will be 1/4th (2^2 = 4 clock cycles) of that of the FPGA. If CLK_DIV was set to 3, SCK
would be 1/8th (2^3 = 8 clock cycles) the frequency of the FPGA's clock.
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04/04/2015