Hello !
I've been wondering how DMA works in UART.
I've checked some codes for example HAL_UART_Transmit_DMA(). I know it is set to sned 8 bit to peripheral. But I wondered when DMA knows that UART sent 8 bit when it is TX DMA or recevied 8 bit when it is in RX DMA. In this case it is TX.
I've checked what HAL_UART_Transmit_DMA() does :
And there was this HAL_DMA_Start_IT(). So it works that DMA sends it's data from memory to UART TX registers. Ok. So tmp is the memory we have the data, and the Instance-> DR is the register the data must be sent.
So where exactly there is info about turning on the UART to transmit data, and when does the DMA know that UART sent 8 bit and is ready to send another 8 bits ?
I've also noticed this :
But I don't understand what it does ? It turn on the UART transmit ?
Sorry for being to picky I was quite a bit confused due to the fact that in HAL_UART_Transmit there is a while which has a counter that sends 1 byte
Although I don't know if it has any info back whether it has sent the data or not. It's so confusing ... There is no waiting time or anything.
The RM does not go to gate-level details. It's expected that you have prior knowledge of general working of basic mcu constituents such as UART and DMA, from school/courses/books or any other general electronics-related form of education. The RM then fills in the STM32-specific details.
So, I'm going to answer some of your concrete questions; but you should start seeking a more thorough introductory material, as you are not going to get a full tutorial here, we just don't have time and space for that.
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> Something like this ?
That's a parallel-loaded shift register (sometimes also denoted as parallel-in-serial-out, or PISO); yes, that's one part of it. The other is the bit counter I've mentioned together with shift register. And of course there's a bunch of auxiliary glue logic to gate clocks, determine counter being at zero, etc.
> UART devices pictures shows only data bus and TX RX like here :
Yes. That's the same as when you talk about a building, say the Empire State Building in New York - the vast majority of public information is how it looks like from the outside; only a few people are interested in, and have seen, the blueprints according which it has been built.
> Like bits 1 and 0 of PA[31:0] are ignored ?
Yes, the zeroth and first bit are used as if they were zero. It means, the address is rounded down to the nearest multiple of four.
> The picture how DMA works doesn't tell a lot :
That's because again, you are looking at a block schematics of all elevators in the Empire State Building, together with the related electric power grid and the traffic distribution. You want to know how one elevator (here: channel) works, so read the description of channel-related registers at the end of the DMA chapter, and then read the functional description. It takes several re-reads, and I recommend you to try to draw yourself block schematics and charts, according to what you are reading.
JW
> So, I'm going to answer some of your concrete questions; but you should start seeking a more thorough introductory material, as you are not going to get a full tutorial here, we just don't have time and space for that.
Understandable, where can I find these materials, recommendations ?
>Yes. That's the same as when you talk about a building, say the Empire State Building in New York - the vast majority of public information is how it looks like from the outside; only a few people are interested in, and have seen, the blueprints according which it has been built.
I thought that when everybody know how UART is working from logic gates then I thought it might be helpful in understanding stuffs or how to write charts etc. So I wanted to know where I can start.
>Yes, the zeroth and first bit are used as if they were zero. It means, the address is rounded down to the nearest multiple of four.
I still don't understand it, what I understood from this :
Is that all 32 bits in PA is ignored because it consist of 0 and 1. Because it says it ignores 1 and 0 in PA[31:0].
That's what I understood because it says it ignores these values in PA
>That's because again, you are looking at a block schematics of all elevators in the Empire State Building, together with the related electric power grid and the traffic distribution. You want to know how one elevator (here: channel) works, so read the description of channel-related registers at the end of the DMA chapter, and then read the functional description. It takes several re-reads, and I recommend you to try to draw yourself block schematics and charts, according to what you are reading.
I don't know how to start with it. I don't know what to achieve from DMA so hence I don't know what to start with ;D
So I should ignore how to works in logic gate way ? I thought it might be helpfull in understanding why I need to set some bits in DMA or in UART or what should be done in code and what is done in hardware without code.
So I don't know how to start learning it, from logic gate side or from just the code but not everything is in code etc.
> It's expected that you have prior knowledge of general working of basic mcu constituents such as UART and DMA, from school/courses/books or any other general electronics-related form of education.
I was only taught how simple things work like Adder, Half-Adder, simple multiplexer, basic operations like OR, AND, Moore machine. But the data bus or how memory works is new thing to me and I tried to learn on my own. Or how UART works in logic thing or DMA or more devices is new, or how 8 wires can send and receive data from memory, new things ;>
Thanks JW !
