21CS43:

MICROCONTROLLER AND
EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
MODULE 4
 Syllabus- Module 4 2

➢ Embedded System Components: ➢ Core of an Embedded System

o Embedded Vs General computing system o Types of processor/controller,

o Memory
o History of embedded systems
o Sensors,
o Classification of Embedded systems
o Actuators
o Major applications areas of embedded
o LED, 7 segment LED display
systems
o Stepper motor, Keyboard, Push button switch,
o Purpose of embedded systems. o Communication Interface (onboard and external types),

o Embedded firmware,

o Other system components.

COMMUNICATION INTERFACE 3

➢ 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:

1. Onboard Communication Interface (Device/board level communication interface)

o E.g.: Serial interfaces like I2C, SPI, UART, 1-Wire, etc and parallel bus interface.

2. External Communication Interface (Product level communication interface)

o E.g.: Wireless interfaces like Infrared (IR), Bluetooth (BT), Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), Radio Frequency
waves (RF), GPRS, etc. and wired interfaces like RS-232C/RS-422/RS-485, USB, Ethernet IEEE
1394 port, Parallel port, CF-II interface, SDIO, PCMCIA, etc.
Onboard Communication Interfaces 4

➢ An embedded system is a combination of different types of components

(chips/devices) arranged on a printed circuit board (PCB).

➢ Onboard Communication Interface refers to the different communication

channels/buses for interconnecting the various integrated circuits and
other peripherals within the embedded system.

➢ E.g.: Serial interfaces like I2C, SPI, UART, 1-Wire, etc and parallel bus
interface
Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) Bus 5

➢ The Inter Integrated Circuit Bus (I2C Pronounced 'I square C') is a synchronous
bidirectional, half duplex, two wire, serial interface bus.
o (Half duplex - one-directional communication at a given point of time)

➢ The concept of I2C bus was developed by Philips Semiconductors in the early 1980s.

➢ 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 comprise of two bus lines:

o Serial Clock (SCL line) – responsible for generating synchronisation clock pulses

o Serial Data (SDA line) – responsible for transmitting the serial data across devices
Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) Bus 6

➢ 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' or 'Slave’.

➢ The 'Master' device is responsible for controlling the communication by initiating/terminating

data transfer, sending data and generating necessary synchronisation 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 synchronisation clock

signal is generated by the 'Master' device only.

➢ I2C supports multi masters on the same bus.

Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) Bus 7
Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) Bus 8

➢ The I2C bus interface is built around an input buffer and an open drain or collector
transistor.
➢ When the bus is in the idle state, the open drain/collector transistor will be in the
floating state and the output lines (SDA and SCL) switch to the ‘High Impedance’
state.
➢ For proper operation of the bus, both the bus lines should be pulled to the supply
voltage (+5V for TTL family and +3.3V for CMOS family devices) using pull-up
resistors.
o The typical value of resistors used in pull-up is 2.2K.

o With pull-up resistors, the output lines of the bus in the idle state will be ‘HIGH’.
I2C Bus- sequence of operations 9

1. The master device pulls the clock line (SCL) of the bus to 'HIGH'
2. The 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. The master device sends the address (7 bit or 10 bit wide) of the 'slave'
device to which it wants to communicate, over the SDA line.
o Clock pulses are generated at the SCL line for synchronising the bit reception by
the slave device.
o The MSB of the data is always transmitted first.
o The data in the bus is valid during the 'HIGH' period of the clock signal
I2C Bus- sequence of operations 10

4. The master device sends the Read or Write bit (Bit value = 1 Read
operation; Bit value = 0 Write operation) according to the requirement
5. The master device waits for the acknowledgement bit from the slave
device whose address is sent on the bus along with the Read/ Write
operation command.
o 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
I2C Bus- sequence of operations 11

7. Upon receiving the acknowledge bit, the Master device sends the 8 bit data to
the slave device over SDA line, if the requested operation is 'Write to device’.
o If the requested operation is 'Read from device', the slave device sends data to the
master over the SDA line

8. The master device 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. The master device terminates the transfer by pulling the SDA line 'HIGH'
when the clock line SCL is at logic 'HIGH' (Indicating the 'STOP' condition)
Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) Bus 12

➢ I2C bus supports three different data rates:

o Standard mode (Data rate up to 100kbits/sec (100 kbps))

o Fast mode (Data rate up to 400kbits/sec (400 kbps))

o High speed mode (Data rate up to 3.4Mbits/sec (3.4 Mbps))

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus 13
➢ The Serial Peripheral Interface Bus (SPI) is a synchronous, bi-directional, full duplex, four-wire, serial
interface bus.
o The concept of SPI was introduced by Motorola.

➢ SPI is a single master - multi-slave system.

o There can be more than one masters, but only one master device can be active at any given point of time.

➢ SPI requires four signal lines for communication. They are:

o 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)

o Master In Slave Out (MISO) – Signal line carrying the data from slave to master device. It is also known as Slave
Output (SO/SDO)

o Serial Clock (SCLK) – Signal line carrying the clock signals

o Slave Select (SS) – Signal line for slave device select. It is an active low signal
Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus 14
Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus 15

➢ The master device is responsible for generating the clock signal.

➢ It 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.
o SPI devices contain a certain set of registers for holding these configurations.

o The control register holds the various configuration parameters like master/slave
selection for the device, baud rate selection for communication, clock signal control, etc.

o The status register holds the status of various conditions for transmission and reception.
Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Bus 16
➢ 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.
o 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.

➢ In summary, the shift registers of 'master' and 'slave' devices form a circular buffer.

➢ When compared to I2C, SPI bus is most suitable for applications requiring transfer of data in ' streams '.

➢ The only limitation is SPI doesn't support an acknowledgement mechanism.

Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter 17
(UART)
➢ Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) based data
transmission is an asynchronous form of serial data transmission.

➢ It doesn't require a clock signal to synchronise the transmitting end

and receiving end for transmission.

➢ Instead it relies upon the pre-defined agreement between the

transmitting device and receiving device.
UART 18
UART 19

➢ The serial communication settings (Baudrate, number of bits per

byte, parity, number 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.
UART 20

➢ 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 baud rate settings.
o If the baud rate is 'x' bits per second, the time slot available for one bit is 1/x seconds.

➢ The receiver unit polls the receiver line at exactly half of the time slot available for the bit.

➢ If parity is enabled for communication, the UART of the transmitting device adds a parity bit (bit value is 1 for
odd number of 1s in the transmitted bit stream and 0 for even number of 1s).

➢ 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 the received bit stream and
converts the received serial bit data to a word
o In the case of 8 bits/byte, the byte is formed with the received 8 bits with the first received bit as the LSB and last received data bit
as MSB.
UART 21

➢ For proper communication, the 'Transmit line' of the sending device should be connected to
the 'Receive line' of the receiving device.

➢ In addition to the serial data transmission function, UART provides hardware handshaking
signal support for controlling the serial data flow.

➢ UART chips are available from different semiconductor manufacturers.

o National Semiconductor's 8250 UART chip is considered as the standard setting UART. It was
used in the original IBM PC.

➢ Nowadays most of the microprocessors/controllers are available with integrated UART

functionality and they provide built-in instruction support for serial data transmission and
reception.
1-Wire Interface 22

➢ 1-wire interface is an asynchronous half-duplex communication protocol developed by

Maxim Dallas Semiconductor.

➢ 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.

➢ One of the key feature of 1-wire bus is that it allows power to be sent along the signal wire
as well.

➢ The 12C slave devices incorporate internal capacitor (typically of the order of 800 pF) to
power the device from the signal line.

➢ The 1-wire interface supports a single master and one or more slave devices on the bus.
1-Wire Interface (continued) 23
1-Wire Interface (continued) 24

➢ Every 1-wire device contains a globally unique 64bit identification

number stored within it.

➢ This unique identification number can be used for addressing

individual devices present on 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.
1-Wire Interface (continued) 25

➢ The sequence of operation for communicating with a 1-wire slave device is listed below:

1. The master device sends a 'Reset' pulse on the 1-wire bus.

2. The slave device(s) present on the bus respond with a 'Presence' pulse.

3. The master device sends a ROM command (Net Address Command followed by the 64 bit
address of the device).
o This addresses the slave device(s) to which it wants to initiate a communication.

4. The master device sends a read/write function command to read/write the internal
memory or register of the slave device.

5. The master initiates a Read data/Write data from the device or to the device.
1-Wire Interface (continued) 26

➢ 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 (480 µs).

➢ 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 60 µs 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 (60 µs).
1-Wire Interface (continued) 27

➢ For writing a bit value of 1 on the 1-wire bus, the bus master pulls the bus for 1
to 15 µs and then releases the bus for the rest of the time slot.
o A bit value of ‘0' is written on the bus by master pulling the bus for a minimum of 1 time
slot (60 µs) and a maximum of 2 time slots (120 µs).

➢ To Read a bit from the slave device, the master pulls the bus 'LOW' for 1 to 15 µs.
o If the slave wants to send a bit value ‘1' in response to the read request from the master,
it simply releases the bus for the rest of the time slot.

o If the slave wants to send a bit value '0', it pulls the bus 'LOW' for the rest of the time
slot.
28
 Parallel
•Interface
The on-board 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.

29
 Parallel Interface
•(continued)
The device is normally memory mapped to the host processor and
a range of address is assigned to it.
• An address decoder circuit is used for generating the chip select
signal for the device.
• When the address selected by the processor is within the range
assigned for the device, the decoder circuit activates the chip select
line and thereby the device becomes active.
• The processor then can read or write from or to the device by
asserting the corresponding control line (RD\ and WR\
respectively).
30
 Parallel Interface
•(continued)
The bus interface diagram shown in the figure illustrates the
interfacing of devices through parallel interface.

Fig: Parallel Interface Bus

31
 Parallel Interface
•(continued)
Parallel communication is host processor initiated.
• If a device wants to initiate the communication, it can inform the same
to the processor through interrupts.
• For this, the interrupt line of the device is connected to the interrupt line of
the processor and the corresponding interrupt is enabled in the host
processor.
• The width of the parallel interface is determined by the data bus width
of the host processor.
• It can be 4 bit, 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit or 64 bit etc.
• The bus width supported by the device should be same as that of the host
processor.
• Parallel data communication offers the highest speed for data transfer.
130
 External Communication
•Interfaces
External Communication Interface refers to the different
communication channels/buses used by the embedded system to
communicate with the external world.
• E.g.: RS-232 C & RS-485, Universal Serial Bus (USB), IEEE 1394
(Firewire), Infrared (IR), Bluetooth (BT), Wi-Fi, ZigBee, GPRS, etc.

33
RS-232 C & RS-485
• RS-232 C (Recommended Standard number 232, revision C) is a legacy,
full duplex, wired, asynchronous serial communication interface.
• The RS-232 interface was developed by the Electronics Industries
Association (EIA) during the early 1960s.
• 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 RS-232 follows the EIA standard for bit transmission.
• As per the EIA standard, a logic ‘0’ is represented with voltage between +3
and +25V and a logic ‘1’ is represented with voltage between -3 and -25 V.
• In EIA standard, logic ‘0’ is known as 'Space' and logic ‘1’ as ‘Mark’.
34
RS-232 C & RS-485 (continued)
• The RS-232 interface defines 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:
• DB-9: 9-Pin connector
• DB-25: 25-Pin connector.

Fig: DB-9 and DB-25 RS-232 Connector Interface

35
RS-232 C & RS-485 (continued)
• The pin details for the two connectors are explained in the
following table:

36
37
RS-232 C & RS-485 (continued)
• 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.

38
RS-232 C & RS-485 (continued)
• 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) control signal 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.

39
 RS-232 C & RS-485 (continued)
• As per the EIA standard RS-232 C supports baudrates up to 20Kbps
(Upper limit 19.2 Kbps)
• The commonly used baudrates by devices are 300bps, 1200bps, 2400bps,
9600bps, 11.52Kbps and 19.2Kbps.
• 9600 is the popular baudrate setting used for PC communication.
• The maximum operating distance supported by RS-232 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.

40
RS-232 C & RS-485 (continued)
• RS-232 supports only point-to-point communication and not suitable for multi-
drop communication.
• It uses single ended data transfer technique for signal transmission and thereby
more susceptible to noise and it greatly reduces the operating distance.
• 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 uses the 'addressing' mechanism to
identify slave devices.

41
 Universal Serial Bus
•(USB)
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a wired high speed serial bus for data
communication.
• The first version of USB (USB 1.0) was released in 1995.
• The USB communication system follows a star topology with a USB
host at the centre and one or more USB peripheral devices/USB
hosts connected to it.
• A USB host can support connections up to 127, including slave
peripheral devices and other USB hosts.

140
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
•(continued)
Figure illustrates the star topology for USB device connection.

Fig: USB Device Connection topology

43
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
•(continued)
USB transmits data in packet format.
• Each data packet has a standard format.
• The USB communication is a host initiated one.
• The USB host contains a host controller which is responsible for
controlling the data communication, including establishing connectivity
with USB slave devices, packetizing and formatting the data.
• There are different standards for implementing the USB Host Control
interface:
• Open Host Control Interface (OHCI)
• Universal Host Control Interface (UHCI)
44
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
•(continued)
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 metres.
• The USB standard uses two different types of connector 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).
• The USB connector present in desktop PCs or laptops are examples for
'Type A' USB connector.
45
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
•(continued)
Both Type A and Type B connectors contain 4 pins for
communication.
• The Pin details for the connectors are listed in the table given
below.
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

46
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
(continued)

Type A Connector Type B Connector Type C Connector

47
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
•(continued)
USB uses differential signals for data transmission.
• It improves the noise immunity.
• USB interface has the ability to supply power to the connecting devices.
• Two connection lines (Ground and Power) of the USB interface are dedicated for
carrying power.
• It can supply power up to 500 mA at 5 V.
• It is sufficient to operate low power devices.
• Mini and Micro USB connectors are available for small form factor devices like
portable media players.
• Each USB device contains a Product ID (PID) and a Vendor ID (VID).
• 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.
48
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
(continued)
• USB supports four different types of data transfers:
• Control transfer : Used by USB system software to query, configure and issue commands to the USB device.
• Bulk transfer : Used for sending a block of data to a device.
• Supports error checking and correction.
• Transferring data to a printer is an example for bulk transfer.

• Isochronous data transfer : Used for real-time data communication.

• Data is transmitted as streams in real-time.
• Doesn't support error checking and re-transmission of data in case of any transmission loss.
• All streaming devices like audio devices and medical equipment for data collection make use of the isochronous
transfer.

• Interrupt transfer : 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 Interrupt transfer.

49
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
•(continued)
USB.ORG is the standards body for defining and controlling the
standards for USB communication.
• Presently USB supports four different data rates:
• Low Speed (1.5Mbps) – USB 1.0
• Full Speed (12Mbps) – USB 1.0
• High Speed (480Mbps) – USB 2.0
• Super Speed (4.8Gbps) – USB 3.0

50
 IEEE 1394
•(Firewire)
IEEE 1394 is 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 implementation of 1394 is available from various players with different
names:
• Firewire is the implementation from Apple Inc
• i.LINK is the implementation from Sony Corporation
• Lynx is the implementation from Texas Instruments

51
 IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
•(continued)
1394 supports peer-to-peer connection and point-to-multipoint communication
allowing 63 devices to be connected on the bus in a tree topology.
• 1394 is a wired serial interface and it can support a cable length of up to 15 feet for
interconnection.
• The 1394 standard supports a data rate of 400 to 3200 Mbits/second.
• The IEEE 1394 uses differential data transfer.
• It increases the noise immunity.
• 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.
150
IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
(continued)

4-pin and 6-pin Connectors 9-pin Connector

53
 IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
•(continued)
The table given below illustrates the pin details for 4, 6 and 9 pin
connectors.

54
 IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
•(continued)
There are two differential data transfer lines A and B per connector.
• In a 1394 cable, normally the differential lines of A are connected to B
(TPA+ to TPB+ and TPA– to TPB– ) and vice versa.
• 1394 is a popular communication interface for connecting embedded
devices like Digital Camera, Camcorder, Scanners to desktop computers
for data transfer and storage.
• IEEE 1394 doesn't require a host for communicating between devices.
• For example, you can directly connect a scanner with a printer for printing.
• The data rate supported by 1394 is far higher than the one supported by
USB2.0 interface.
• The 1394 hardware implementation is much costlier than USB
implementation.
55
 Infrared
•(IrDA)
Infrared (IrDA) is a serial, half duplex, line of sight based wireless technology
for data communication between devices.
• It is in use from the olden days of communication and you may be very familiar
with it.
• E.g.: The remote control of TV, VCD player, etc. works on Infrared.
• Infrared communication technique uses infrared waves of the electromagnetic
spectrum for transmitting the data.
• It 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 10 cm to 1 m.
• The range can be increased by increasing the transmitting power of the IR
device.
56
 Infrared (IrDA)
•(continued)
IR supports data rates ranging from 9600bits/second to 16Mbps.
• Depending on the speed of data transmission IR is classified into:
• Serial IR (SIR) – supports data rates ranging from 9600bps to 115.2kbps.
• Medium IR (MIR) – supports data rates of 0.576Mbps and 1.152Mbps.
• Fast IR (FIR) – supports data rates up to 4Mbps.
• Very Fast IR (VFIR) – supports high data rates up to 16Mbps.
• Ultra Fast IR (UFIR) – targeted to support a data rate up to 100Mbps.

57
 Infrared (IrDA)
•(continued)
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 the IR source for transmitter and at
the receiving end a photodiode acts as the receiver.
• Both transmitter and receiver unit will be present in each device
supporting IrDA communication for bidirectional data transfer.
• Such IR units are known as 'Transceiver’.
• Certain devices like a TV remote control always require unidirectional
communication and so they contain either the transmitter or receiver
unit.
• The remote control unit contains the transmitter unit and TV contains the
receiver unit.
58
 Infrared (IrDA)
•(continued)
Infrared Data Association (IrDA ) is the regulatory body responsible for defining
and licensing the specifications for IR data communication.
• IR 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 IR communication
• Protocol part is responsible for defining the rules of communication.
• The physical link works on the wireless principle making use of Infrared for
communication.
• The IrDA specifications include the standard for both physical link and protocol
layer.
• The IrDA control protocol contains implementations for Physical Layer (PHY),
Media Access Control (MAC) and Logical Link Control (LLC).

59
 Infrared (IrDA)
•(continued)
IrDA is a popular interface for file exchange and data transfer in low
cost devices.
• IrDA was the prominent communication channel in mobile phones
before Bluetooth's existence.

60
 Bluetooth
•(BT)
Bluetooth is a low cost, low power, short range wireless technology
for data and voice communication.
• Bluetooth was first proposed by Ericsson in 1994.
• Bluetooth operates at 2.4GHz of the Radio Frequency spectrum and
uses the Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technique for
communication.
• It supports a data rate of up to 1Mbps and a range of approximately
30 feet for data communication.

61
 Bluetooth (BT)
•(continued)
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
• The 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.
160
 Bluetooth (BT)
•(continued)
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.
• When a network is formed with one Bluetooth device as master and more than
one device as slaves, it is called a Piconet.
• A Piconet supports a maximum of seven slave devices.

63
 Bluetooth (BT)
•(continued)
Bluetooth is the favourite choice for short range data communication in handheld
embedded devices.
• Bluetooth technology is very popular among cell phone users as they are the easiest
communication channel for transferring ringtones, music files, pictures, media files,
etc. between neighbouring Bluetooth enabled phones.
• The Bluetooth standard specifies the minimum requirements that a Bluetooth device
must support for a specific usage scenario.
• The Generic Access Profile (GAP) defines the requirements for detecting a Bluetooth
device and establishing a connection with it.
• All other specific usage profiles are based on GAP.
• Serial Port Profile (SPP) for serial data communication, File Transfer Profile (FTP) for file
transfer between devices, Human Interface Device (HID) for supporting human interface
devices like keyboard and mouse are examples for Bluetooth profiles.
• The specifications for Bluetooth communication is defined and licensed by the
standards body 'Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG)'.

64
 Wi-
•Fi
Wi-Fi or Wireless Fidelity is 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.
• It is essential to have device identities in a multipoint communication to
address specific devices for data communication.
• In an IP based communication each device is identified by an IP address, which
is unique to each device on the network.

65
 Wi-Fi
•(continued)
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.
• The hardware part of it is known as Wi-Fi Radio.
• Wi-Fi operates at 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz of radio spectrum and they co-exist with
other ISM band devices like Bluetooth.

66
 Wi-Fi
•(continued)
Figure illustrates the typical interfacing of devices in a Wi-Fi
network.

Fig: Wi-Fi Network

67
 Wi-Fi
•(continued)
For communicating with devices over a Wi-Fi network, the device when
its Wi-Fi radio is turned ON, searches the available Wi-Fi network in its
vicinity and lists out the Service Set Identifier (SSID) of the available
networks.
• If the network is security enabled, a password may be required to
connect to a particular SSID.
• Wi-Fi employs different security mechanisms like Wired Equivalency
Privacy (WEP), Wireless Protected Access (WPA), etc. for securing the
data communication.
• Wi-Fi supports data rates ranging from 1 Mbps to 1.73 Gbps depending
on the standards (802.11a/b/g/n) and access/modulation method.
• Depending on the type of antenna and usage location (indoor/outdoor),
Wi-Fi offers a range of 100 to 300 feet.
68
 ZigBe
•eZigBee is a 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 metres and a data rate of
20 to 250 Kbps.
69
 ZigBee
•(continued)
In the ZigBee terminology, each ZigBee device falls under any one of the
following ZigBee device category:
• ZigBee Coordinator (ZC)/Network Coordinator
• The ZigBee coordinator acts as the root of the ZigBee network.
• The ZC is responsible for initiating the ZigBee network and it has the capability to
store information about the network.
• ZigBee Router (ZR)/Full function Device (FFD)
• Responsible for passing information from device to another device or to another
ZR.
• 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 another.

70
 ZigBee
•(continued)
The diagram shown in figure gives an overview of ZC, ZED and ZR in
a ZigBee network.

Fig: A ZigBee network model

71
 ZigBee
•(continued)
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 detectors, wireless telemetry,
HVAC control, heating control, lighting controls, environmental controls,
etc. are examples for applications which can make use of the ZigBee
technology.
• The specifications for ZigBee is developed and managed by the ZigBee
Alliance, a non-profit consortium of leading semiconductor
manufacturers, technology providers, OEMs and end-users worldwide.
170
 General Packet Radio Service
•(GPRS)
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a communication technique for
transferring data over a mobile communication network like GSM.
• Data is sent as packets in GPRS communication.
• 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 171.2 kbps.
• In GPRS communication, the radio channel is concurrently shared
between several users instead of dedicating a radio channel to a cell
phone user.

73
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
(continued)
• 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.
• To accomplish GPRS based communication, the carrier network also should have
support for GPRS communication.
• GPRS is an old technology and it is being replaced by new generation data
communication techniques like EDGE, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA),
Long Term Evolution (LTE), etc. which offers higher bandwidths for communication.

74