RM0082
LS_I2C controller
Doc ID 018672 Rev 1
611/844
A hardware receiver does not respond to the START byte because it is a reserved address
and it resets after the Sr (restart condition) is generated.
28.3.3
DMA controller interface
The I2C Controller has a handshaking interface to request and control transfers from the
DMA Controller of the SPEAr
TM
device. The APB bus is used to perform the data transfer to
or from the DMA.
Note:
When DMA Controller of the SPEAr
TM
device is used for data transfers to/from the I2C
Controller, the DMA Controller must always be programmed as the flow controller; that is,
the DMA Controller controls the block size.
Enabling the DMA controller
interface
To enable the DMA Controller interface on the I2C, the DMA Control Register (IC_DMA_CR,
) has to be set. Writing a 'b1 into the TDMAE bit field of IC_DMA_CR
register, it enables the I2C Controller transmit handshaking interface. Besides, writing a 'b1
into the RDMAE bit field of the IC_DMA_CR register, the I2C Controller receive
handshaking interface is enabled.
Transmit watermark level and transmit FIFO underflow
During I2C Controller serial transfers, transmit FIFO requests are made to the DMA
Controller whenever the number of entries in the transmit FIFO is less than or equal to the
DMA Transmit Data Level Register (IC_DMA_TDLR,
) value, this is known
as the "watermark level".
The DMA Controller responds by writing a burst of data to the transmit FIFO buffer. Data
should be fetched from the DMA often enough for the transmit FIFO to perform serial
transfers continuously; that is, when the FIFO begins to empty another DMA request
should be triggered. Otherwise, the FIFO will run out of data (underflow). To prevent this
condition, the user must set the watermark level correctly.”
Choosing the Transmit watermark level
The goal in choosing a watermark level is to minimize the number of transactions per block,
keeping the probability of an underflow condition to an acceptable level.
In practice, this is a function of the ratio of the rate at which the I2C transmits data to the rate
at which the DMA can respond to destination burst requests. For example, promoting the
channel to the highest priority channel in the DMA, and promoting the DMA master interface
to the highest priority master in the AMBA layer, increases the rate at which the DMA
controller can respond to burst transaction requests. This in turn allows the user to decrease
the watermark level, which improves bus utilization without compromising the probability of
an underflow occurring.
Receive watermark level and receive FIFO overflow
During I2C Controller serial transfers, receive FIFO requests are made to the DMA
Controller whenever the number of entries in the receive FIFO is at or above the DMA
Receive Data Level Register (IC_DMA_RDLR,
), that is D 1,
which is known as the "watermark level".
The DMA Controller responds by writing a burst of data to the transmit FIFO buffer. Data
should be fetched by the DMA often enough for the receive FIFO to accept serial transfers
