Multi-UART Controller with Programmable Modes of Operation

Abstract

A Multi-UART controller is presented in this paper which will serve the purpose of communication between different systems or sub-systems of large system. The different systems or sub-systems of a large system will be able to operate at different baud rates and will use the UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) to perform communication. This controller has different modes of operation—Normal, Bridge and Hub modes. The controller uses an asynchronous FIFO (First In First Out) block for communication purpose. This controller will reduce the synchronization errors between different systems or sub-systems which are communicating with each other. Since communication between sub-systems or different systems is handled by this controller it will not burden the master processor or main system with communication related operations. This paper improves over [2] as the modes of operation being incorporated in the design itself and are completely reconfigurable.