ATmega8U2/16U2/32U2
18.6 Data Transmission – The USART Transmitter
The USART Transmitter is enabled by setting the Transmit Enable (TXEN) bit in the UCSRnB
Register. When the Transmitter is enabled, the normal port operation of the TxDn pin is overrid-
den by the USART and given the function as the Transmitter’s serial output. The baud rate,
mode of operation and frame format must be set up once before doing any transmissions. If syn-
chronous operation is used, the clock on the XCKn pin will be overridden and used as
transmission clock.
18.6.1
Sending Frames with 5 to 8 Data Bit
A data transmission is initiated by loading the transmit buffer with the data to be transmitted. The
CPU can load the transmit buffer by writing to the UDRn I/O location. The buffered data in the
transmit buffer will be moved to the Shift Register when the Shift Register is ready to send a new
frame. The Shift Register is loaded with new data if it is in idle state (no ongoing transmission) or
immediately after the last stop bit of the previous frame is transmitted. When the Shift Register is
loaded with new data, it will transfer one complete frame at the rate given by the Baud Register,
U2Xn bit or by XCKn depending on mode of operation.
The following code examples show a simple USART transmit function based on polling of the
Data Register Empty (UDREn) Flag. When using frames with less than eight bits, the most sig-
nificant bits written to the UDRn are ignored. The USART has to be initialized before the function
can be used. For the assembly code, the data to be sent is assumed to be stored in Register
R16
Assembly Code Example(1)
USART_Transmit:
; Wait for empty transmit buffer
sbis UCSRnA,UDREn
rjmp USART_Transmit
; Put data (r16) into buffer, sends the data
out UDRn,r16
ret
C Code Example(1)
void USART_Transmit( unsigned char data )
{
/* Wait for empty transmit buffer */
while ( !( UCSRnA & (1<<UDREn)) )
;
/* Put data into buffer, sends the data */
UDRn = data;
}
Note:
1. See “Code Examples” on page 6.
The function simply waits for the transmit buffer to be empty by checking the UDREn Flag,
before loading it with new data to be transmitted. If the Data Register Empty interrupt is utilized,
the interrupt routine writes the data into the buffer.
18.6.2
Sending Frames with 9 Data Bit
If 9-bit characters are used (UCSZn = 7), the ninth bit must be written to the TXB8 bit in UCS-
RnB before the low byte of the character is written to UDRn. The following code examples show
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7799D–AVR–11/10
ATMEL [ ATMEL ]
