International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology

(IJECET)
Volume 7, Issue 3, MayJune 2016, pp. 3845, Article ID: IJECET_07_03_005
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ISSN Print: 0976-6464 and ISSN Online: 0976-6472
IAEME Publication

AREA OPTIMIZATION OF SPI MODULE

USING VERILOG HDL
Bangaru Kalpana
Student
School of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Reva University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Amrut Anilrao Purohit
Assistant Professor
School of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Reva University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
R. Venkata Siva Reddy
Professor
School of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Reva University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ABSTRACT
The Objective of this Paper is to optimize the area of (Serial peripheral
interface) SPI module. SPI is a inter and intra communication protocol used
for communication and testings like BST. Its occupies space in Embedded
industry for communication of devices like Microcontrollers, peripherals for
example ADCs, DACs, Memories etc. ll these devices have a SPI module on
it which acts as a master or Slave. This module is consuming more Area, here
we made a approach in order to reduce Area, which reduces Cost as well.
Protocol is implemented in Structural Code Verilog, Simulated and
Synthesized Using Xilinx9.1 on various families of FPGA. Finally whole
design is mapped onto Vertex 5 FPGA.
Key words: SPI module, Vertex 5FPGA, Xilinx 9.1.
Cite this Article: Bangaru Kalpana, Amrut Anilrao Purohit and R. Venkata
Siva Reddy, Area Optimization of SPI Module Using Verilog HDL,
International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &
Technology, 7(3), 2016, pp. 3845.
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Area Optimization of SPI Module Using Verilog HDL

1. INTRODUCTION
The communication links across components of a chip or a board may be either serial
or parallel. Serial communication is performed over fewer interconnecting cables,
thus enables to save a significant amount of space and reduce the number of
connecting pins. These reasons have led the serial communication interfaces to play a
major role in the field of embedded systems.
Even though serial communications like I2C offers much more features than SPI,
Such as less pin count, automatic multi-master conflicts handling and built in
addressing management etc. SPI is preferable, since it is very simple, high speed
protocol, gives better throughput and offers extensions and variations.
Technology has been increased Integrated chips came into picture, where millions
of devices are integrated in to the single chip reduces area and Cost as well. In this
Paper we moved one more step to reduce area consumed by the SPI module.
SPI protocol introduced by the Motorola has four wires. It doesnt have a Certain
Speed limit, todays it works up to 10Mega bits per second. It is a Mater-Slave
protocol i.e., A Module can be acts as either Master or Slave. Master initiates the
transmission and sends out Clock.
In this paper we used a Structural code Verilog to implement SPI module. A
simple master, slave are deigned and the whole design is simulated and synthesized
using Xilinx9.1.

1.1. SPI Protocol

SPI is a simple four wire protocol designed by the Motorola initially, later many
vendors came up with new SPI designs ,some features added .it is a full duplex,
Synchronous serial comminution protocol. It isnt a standard protocol like I2C.
Designer has freedom to Extend it .SPI works in either master mode or Slave mode.
Four pins and their description according to the Motorola as below
Table1 Shows how the purpose of pins vary for master and slave modules
Pin notation

Master

Slave

MOSI (Master out slave in)

Output pin

Input pin

MISO (master in Slaveout)

Input pin

Output pin

SCK (serial clock)

Output pin

Input Pin

SS_ba (slave select)

Output pin

Input pin

Master starts sending or receiving by asserting slave select line of particular slave,
generates Clock and sends out the clock to the slave through SCK line, keep whole
transmission under control of the clock.
Every SPI module has mainly Port logic, Baud rate generation logic, Shift logic
[7]. It has 8 bit registers through which user can sets SPI module. Even it is 8 bit, it
can transmit up to 12 bits. Control word written decides whether the SPI Module
works as master or slave, the two shift registers , one in Master and one in Slave are
Connected in loop through MOSI and MISO lines[7]. Since it is full duplex for every
clock pulse one bit is shifted in and shifted out of the module. Once Data has been
received, data will transfer to receive data register parallelly, sets bits in Status
register.

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Bangaru Kalpana, Amrut Anilrao Purohit and R. Venkata Siva Reddy

Baud rate register

R/W
Reset

SPPR2

SPPR1

SPPR0

SPR2

SPR1

SPR0

Figure1 Reset values, bits description of baud rate register

Above shows a baud rate register with 8 bits sets the clock rate, SPPR2, SPPR1,
SPPR0 are Baud rate preselection bits and SPR0, SPR1, SPR2 SPI Baud rate selection
bits combinely to divide clock to desired frequency.
Status Register: As per name it shows the status of SPI module
R/W

SPIF

Reset

SPTEF
0

Figure2 Reset values and bit descriptions of status register

SPTEF -set's the interrupt when the transmit data register is empty. Clearing this
bit after writing to data register starts next transmission.
SPIF-SPI interrupt flag: Once data has been received, this bit is set. Reading data
register without reading status register is not allowed.

Control register
R/W
Reset

SPIE
0

SPE
0

SPTIE

MSTR

CPOL

CPHA
0

SSOE

LSBFE

Figure3: Reset values and bit descriptions of control register

SPIE- interrupt enable bit of SPI module. Enable the interrupt for reading
operation if SPIF =1.ISR interrupt service routine, which includes operations to Start
next byte of transmission consider the interrupt raises by SPIF this bit is to be set.
SPE- system enable bit of SPI module. SPI module works only, if this bit is set.
Clearing of this bit disables the SPI module and goes to idle state. SPTIE-Transmit
enable bit of SPI. Enable the interrupt for next transmission if SPITFE=1.This bit
enables the SPTEF interrupt to survive. MSTR-This bit shows weather module acts as
master or slave, if 1 acts as master. CPOL: Clock polarity bit, if 1, Clock inversion
occurs. This bit sets the clock as inverted clock or non-inverted that module has to
work. CPHA: This bit decides at which clock edges latching and shifting has to occur,
if it is 0, latching occurs on even edges and shifting in odd. SSOE: Slave select output
enabled, for master acts as output pin assert to Vcc if single master, for slave acts as
input pin grounded to 0 if single slave. LSBFE-This bit decides which bit to shift
either LSB (least significant bit) or MSB (most significant bit) to shift.

2. FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION
Control word written decides Module as a master or Slave. SPE bit enables the SPI
module and MSTR decides Mater or Slave [4].

MASTER
If MSTR=1, Module do master functions.it has to generate Clock. Baud logic
generates the clock from the word written to the baud rate register. Master initiates the
transmission by selecting slave through SS_bar line. The slave by asserting slave
select line of particular slave to 0 in Multi slave mode. If single slave in
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Area Optimization of SPI Module Using Verilog HDL

communication, VCC is given to SS pin. It begins transmission by reading the Status

register, if SPITE =1 write the data has to be transmitted into Transmit data register.
Transmit data register shifts 8bit data parrallely into Shift register by clearing SPITE
flag. Communication occurs by transmitting one bit per one clock pulse, after 8 pulses
data has been received shifted out parallelly into Receive data register by setting SPIF
flag.

Slave
If MSTR=0, module acts as Slave. In slave mode SCK and MOSI acts as input pins
and MISO as output pin by default. Select pin is connected to the ground before
transmission. Data exchanging occurs under the control of master clock. Once data
has been received, bits are transmitted to Data register by setting SPIF flag bit. This
bit is cleared by doing read accesses to the status register followed by data register.

2.1.1. Transmission Formats: [4]

CPOL, CPHA bits in the Control register decides four modes in which data
transmission occurs. CPOL bit decides, Clock is inverted or not.

Mode 0 when CPOL=0, CPHA=0:

Data changing on falling edge, reading on raising edge

FIGURE 4 Timing diagram of mode0

Mode 1 when CPOL=1, CPHA=0:

FIGURE 5 Timing diagram of mode1

Mode 2 when CPOL=0, CPHA=1:

FIGURE 6 Timing diagram of mode2

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Bangaru Kalpana, Amrut Anilrao Purohit and R. Venkata Siva Reddy

Mode 3 when CPOL=1, CPHA=1:

Figure7 Timing diagram of mode 3

3. NEW DESIGN
We followed the Motorola user guide in order to model this design. Optimization of
the gate level logic design is possible if we have a thorough knowledge of digital
design. We actually went for digital logic design of logics to compress the area of SPI
protocol.
Successfully we optimize the area of baud logic, shift logic and port logic results a
very less consumption of area than previous design. Since it is a Synchronous and
asynchronous mixed design, all synchronous part of a design is edge triggered one.
Synthesis has done on vertex-5 Xc5VLX30T FF324 board using XILINX 9.1.
Below shows RTL view and schematic view of design on vertex-5 Xc5VLX30T
FF324

Figure 8 SPI module RTL view.

Figure 9 SPI module RTL view.

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Area Optimization of SPI Module Using Verilog HDL

4. IMPLEMENTATION RESULTS
Whole design implemented in XILINX9.1. Below shows verification results of design
done by using MODELSIM 9.1. Design wrong with control, data, and baud registers
which has to set by the user. A default value has been assigned to the register before
module works for transmission. In our design default values are shown above.
Below shows synthesis results of design, mapped on to vertex-5 Xc5VLX30T
FF324 board, spatran3 board etc... A comparison is made to the previous design
results.
SPI master module sending data out:

Figure 10.SPI module as Master when MSTR=1.

SPI slave module receiving data:

Figure 11 SPI module as a slave when MSTR=0.

Table 2 Shows Synthesis results on Vertex 5 xc5vlx30-3ff324 comparison [1] & [4]

Slices count
LUT count
Bound ed IOB s

Used by
Our design
0
40
22

Available
40
19200
220

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Utilized in
percentage
0%
0%
10%

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Bangaru Kalpana, Amrut Anilrao Purohit and R. Venkata Siva Reddy

Table3 Shows Synthesis results comparison on different boards with previous design done in
reference [2]
Spartan 3E
XC3S500E 5[2]

Used by
Our design

Used By previous
design

Available

Slices count

13

51

4656

LUT count of
4 input

92

23

9312

Bounded
IOBs

22

Out of 92

21outof232

Spartan 3E
XC3S1200E
-5
Slices count

13

51

8672

LUT count

23

92

17344

Bounded
IOBs

22outof
190

21 out of
250

Virtex 4
XC4VFX100
-12
Slices
count
LUT count
Bounded
IOBs

13

43

42176

81

23

84352

22 out of
576

21out of
680

5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

Proposed design is simple SPI module acts as either master or slave. Our design
consumes less area comparatively known from results in section before. Reducing
area, reduces cost of design as well. Future, by adding some more features this
module can also work in multi slave and multi master communication environment,
still consumes less area.

REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

Anand N, George Joseph, Suwin Sam Oommen, and R Dhanabal, design and
implementation of high speed serial interface, School of Electronics Engineering,
VIT University, Vellore, India.
Amit Kumar Shrivastava and Himanshu Joshi, Design, Implementation and
Functional Verification of Serial Communication Protocols (SPI and I2C) on
FPGAs, HCTL Open IJTIR Volume 4, July 2013.

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Area Optimization of SPI Module Using Verilog HDL

[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]

[9]

[10]

T. Durga Prasad and B. Ramesh Babu, Design and simulation of master/ using
Verilog HDL, IJSR, 3 (8), August 2014.
Prof. Jai Karan Singh and Prof. Mukesh Tiwari, Implementation of SPI slave on
FPGA, IJAET/Vol.III/ Issue IV/Oct.-Dec, 2012/24-26.
A.K. Oudjida et al, FPGA Implementation of I2C and SPI protocols, IEEE
Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine, pp.813, February 2009.
Motorola Inc, SPI Block Guide V03.06, February 2003.
Fareha Naqvi, design and implementation of serial peripheral interface protocol
Using Verilog HDL, 2015 IJEDR, 3(3) ISDSN: 23219939.
Qazi Raza Abdul Quadir, Arif Rasool, Manan Mushtaq and Yasirbhat, Design
and Simulation of A Non-Pipelined, Multi- Cycle 16 Bit Risc Educational
Processor Using Verilog HDL, International Journal of Electronics and
Communication Engineering & Technology, 5(9), 2014, pp. 1423.
Md. Ajmal Sadiq, T.Naga Raju and Kumar. Keshamoni, Modeling and
Simulation Of Test Data Compression Using Verilog, International Journal of
Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology, 4(5), 2013, pp. 143
141.
R.Kathiresan, M.Thangavel, K.Rathinakumar And S.Maragadharaj, Analysis of
Different Bit Carry Look Ahead Adder Using Verilog Code, International
Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology, 4(4),
2013, pp. 214220.

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