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Serial interface 3 - RS-232 transmitter

We are building an "async transmitter" with fixed parameters: 8 data bits, 2 stop bits, no-parity.

It works like that:

Serializing the data

To go through the start bit, the 8 data bits, and the stop bits, a state machine seems appropriate.

reg [3:0] state;

// the state machine starts when "TxD_start" is asserted, but advances when "BaudTick" is asserted (115200 times a second)
always @(posedge clk)
case(state)
  4'b0000: if(TxD_start) state <= 4'b0100;
  4'b0100: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1000; // start
  4'b1000: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1001; // bit 0
  4'b1001: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1010; // bit 1
  4'b1010: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1011; // bit 2
  4'b1011: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1100; // bit 3
  4'b1100: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1101; // bit 4
  4'b1101: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1110; // bit 5
  4'b1110: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b1111; // bit 6
  4'b1111: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b0001; // bit 7
  4'b0001: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b0010; // stop1
  4'b0010: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b0000; // stop2
  default: if(BaudTick) state <= 4'b0000;
endcase

Now, we just need to generate the "TxD" output.

reg muxbit;

always @(state[2:0])
case(state[2:0])
  0: muxbit <= TxD_data[0];
  1: muxbit <= TxD_data[1];
  2: muxbit <= TxD_data[2];
  3: muxbit <= TxD_data[3];
  4: muxbit <= TxD_data[4];
  5: muxbit <= TxD_data[5];
  6: muxbit <= TxD_data[6];
  7: muxbit <= TxD_data[7];
endcase

// combine start, data, and stop bits together
assign TxD = (state<4) | (state[3] & muxbit);

The complete code can be found here.