SPI — Serial peripheral interface master

The different signals SCK, MOSI, and MISO associated with the SPI master are mapped to physical pins.

This mapping is according to the configuration specified in the PSEL.SCK, PSEL.MOSI, and PSEL.MISO registers respectively. If the CONNECT field of a PSEL.xxx register is set to Disconnected, the associated SPI master signal is not connected to any physical pin. The PSEL.SCK, PSEL.MOSI, and PSEL.MISO registers and their configurations are only used as long as the SPI master is enabled, and retained only as long as the device is in ON mode. PSEL.SCK, PSEL.MOSI, and PSEL.MISO must only be configured when the SPI master is disabled.

To secure correct behavior in the SPI, the pins used by the SPI must be configured in the GPIO peripheral as described in GPIO configuration prior to enabling the SPI. The SCK must always be connected to a pin, and that pin's input buffer must always be connected for the SPI to work. This configuration must be retained in the GPIO for the selected I/Os as long as the SPI is enabled.

Only one peripheral can be assigned to drive a particular GPIO pin at a time. Failing to do so may result in unpredictable behavior.

The SPI shares registers and other resources with other peripherals that have the same ID as the SPI. Therefore, the user must disable all peripherals that have the same ID as the SPI before the SPI can be configured and used.

Disabling a peripheral that has the same ID as the SPI will not reset any of the registers that are shared with the SPI. It is therefore important to configure all relevant SPI registers explicitly to secure that it operates correctly.

See the Instantiation table in Instantiation for details on peripherals and their IDs.

An SPI master transaction is started by writing the first byte, which is to be transmitted by the SPI master, to the TXD register.

Since the transmitter is double buffered, the second byte can be written to the TXD register immediately after the first one. The SPI master will then send these bytes in the order they are written to the TXD register.

The SPI master is a synchronous interface, and for every byte that is sent, a different byte will be received at the same time. This is illustrated in SPI master transaction. Bytes that are received will be moved to the RXD register where the CPU can extract them by reading the register. The RXD register is double buffered in the same way as the TXD register, and a second byte can therefore be received at the same time as the first byte is being extracted from RXD by the CPU. The SPI master will generate a READY event every time a new byte is moved to the RXD register. The double buffered byte will be moved from RXD-1 to RXD as soon as the first byte is extracted from RXD. The SPI master will stop when there are no more bytes to send in TXD and TXD+1.

Figure 2. SPI master transaction

The READY event of the third byte transaction is delayed until B is extracted from RXD in occurrence number 3 on the horizontal lifeline. The reason for this is that the third event is generated first when C is moved from RXD-1 to RXD after B is read.

The SPI master will move the incoming byte to the RXD register after a short delay following the SCK clock period of the last bit in the byte. This also means that the READY event will be delayed accordingly, see SPI master transaction. Therefore, it is important that you always clear the READY event, even if the RXD register and the data that is being received is not used.

Figure 3. SPI master transaction