What is UART in MSP430?

The universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART) interface enables serial communication between the MSP430™ microcontroller (MCU) and another device, such as a personal computer (PC), host MCU, or host processor. Both devices must operate at the same baud rate to communicate.

What baud rates are supported by the UART for serial communication?

The only requirement is that both devices operate at the same rate. One of the more common baud rates, especially for simple stuff where speed isn’t critical, is 9600 bps. Other “standard” baud are 1200, 2400, 4800, 19200, 38400, 57600, and 115200.

How is baud rate calculated?

Baud can be determined by using the following formula: Baud = (Gross Bit Rate / Number of Bits per Symbol). This can be used to translate baud into a bit rate using the following formula: Bit Rate = (Bits per Symbol × Symbol Rate).

What are communication peripherals in MSP430?

In MSP430, serial communication is handled by an on chip peripheral called USCI (Universal Serial Communications Interface​). The peripheral is designed in such a way that it can handle multiple serial communication formats ,synchronous as well as asynchronous like SPI,I2C,IrDA,UART etc.

How does UART generate baud rate?

Many UARTs use a divider chain to divide the frequency of a clock signal to generate a set of baud rate clocks used at the sender and receiver. This clock signal (square wave signal) may be created using a crystal oscillator circuit. In most cases, the clock is derived from a small crystal oscillator.

What is the MSP430 UART calculator?

This calculator computes the value of the various UART registers for the MSP430 series processors from Texas Instruments. The hardest register value to compute is the modulation register, because it is iteratively computed to minimize the accumulating bit error.

What are the different types of MSP430 UART peripherals?

MSP430 families contain different peripherals capable of UART communications. Among these are USCI, USART and eUSCI modules. UART can also be generated using timers or even bit-banged. Some peripherals have sophisticated options that we will not cover since they are rarely used.

How many data bits does the MSP430 support?

The number of data bits is typically 8, but it can be configured for 7 bits as well. Although some UART receivers can use a different number of bits, only 8 or 8 bits are supported by the MSP430. After the data bits stop bits are sent along with an optional parity bit. MSP430 families contain different peripherals capable of UART communications.

How do I connect the msp430g2553 to the computer?

The MSP430G2553 or any MSP430 in the socket is connected to the computer via USB using a combination of MSP430 and a TUSB3410 or similar USB device. In many Launchpads, these devices limit the baud rate to 9600 baud. Note that this isn’t a limitation of the MSP430 UART interface itself.