MISC USB points

Interrupt Transfers

Any one who has had experience of interrupt requests on microcontrollers will know that interrupts are device generated. However under USB if a device requires the attention of the host, it must wait until the host polls it before it can report that it needs urgent attention! 

Interrupt transfers are typically non-periodic, small device "initiated" communication requiring bounded latency. An Interrupt request is queued by the device until the host polls the USB device asking for data.

•  

  • Interrupt Transfers
    • Guaranteed Latency
    • Stream Pipe - Unidirectional
    • Error detection and next period retry.

The maximum data payload size for low-speed devices is 8 bytes. 

Maximum data payload size for full-speed devices is 64 bytes. 

Maximum data payload size for high-speed devices is 1024 bytes.

• IN: The host will periodically poll the interrupt endpoint. This rate of polling is specified in the endpoint descriptorwhich is covered later. Each poll will involve the host sending an IN Token. If the IN token is corrupt, the function ignores the packet and continues monitoring the bus for new tokens.

  If an interrupt has been queued by the device, the function will send a data packet containing data relevant to the interrupt when it receives the IN Token. Upon successful reciept at the host, the host will return an ACK. However if the data is corrupted, the host will return no status. If on the other hand an interrupt condition was not present when the host polled the interrupt endpoint with an IN token, then the function signals this state by sending a NAK. If an error has occurred on this endpoint, a STALL is sent in reply to the IN token instead.

• OUT: When the host wants to send the device interrupt data, it issues an OUT token followed by a data packet containing the interrupt data. If any part of the OUT token or data packet is corrupt then the function ignores the packet. If the function's endpoint buffer was empty and it has clocked the data into the endpoint buffer it issues an ACK informing the host it has successfully received the data. If the endpoint buffer is not empty due to processing of a previous packet, then the function returns a NAK. However if an error occurred with the endpoint consequently and its halt bit has been set, it returns a STALL.

Bulk Transfers

Bulk transfers can be used for large bursty data. Such examples could include a print-job sent to a printer or an image generated from a scanner. Bulk transfers provide error correction in the form of a CRC16 field on the data payload and error detection/re-transmission mechanisms ensuring data is transmitted and received without error.

Bulk transfers will use spare un-allocated bandwidth on the bus after all other transactions have been allocated. If the bus is busy with isochronous and/or interrupt then bulk data may slowly trickle over the bus. As a result Bulk transfers should only be used for time insensitive communication as there is no guarantee of latency. 

Bulk transfers are only supported by full and high speed devices. For full speed endpoints, the maximum bulk packet size is either 8, 16, 32 or 64 bytes long. For high speed endpoints, the maximum packet size can be up to 512 bytes long. If the data payload falls short of the maximum packet size, it doesn't need to be padded with zeros. A bulk transfer is considered complete when it has transferred the exact amount of data requested, transferred a packet less than the maximum endpoint size, or transferred a zero-length packet.

• • Bulk Transfers
    • Used to transfer large bursty data.
    • Error detection via CRC, with guarantee of delivery.
    • No guarantee of bandwidth or minimum latency.
    • Stream Pipe - Unidirectional
    • Full & high speed modes only.

Negotiating High Speed

To maintain the required compatibility, a high speed device will always present itself initially as a Full Speed device (by a 1.5K pullup resistor on D+).

The negotiation for High Speed takes place during the Reset, which is, as we remember, the first thing a host must do to a device before attempting data communication.

The high speed detection handshake is initiated by the device.

 

 

Common USB Packet Fields

Data on the USBus is transmitted LSBit first. USB packets consist of the following fields,

• Sync

• All packets must start with a sync field. The sync field is 8 bits long at low and full speed or 32 bits long for high speed and is used to synchronise the clock of the receiver with that of the transmitter. The last two bits indicate where the PID fields starts. 

   

• PID

• PID stands for Packet ID. This field is used to identify the type of packet that is being sent. The following table shows the possible values.

• Group	PID Value	Packet Identifier
  Token	0001	OUT Token
  	1001	IN Token
  	0101	SOF Token
  	1101	SETUP Token
  Data	0011	DATA0
  	1011	DATA1
  	0111	DATA2
  	1111	MDATA
  Handshake	0010	ACK Handshake
  	1010	NAK Handshake
  	1110	STALL Handshake
  	0110	NYET (No Response Yet)
  Special	1100	PREamble
  	1100	ERR
  	1000	Split
  	0100	Ping

   

  There are 4 bits to the PID, however to insure it is received correctly, the 4 bits are complemented and repeated, making an 8 bit PID in total. The resulting format is shown below. 

• PID0

  PID1

  PID2

  PID3

  nPID0

  nPID1

  nPID2

  nPID3

• ADDR

• The address field specifies which device the packet is designated for. Being 7 bits in length allows for 127 devices to be supported. Address 0 is not valid, as any device which is not yet assigned an address must respond to packets sent to address zero.

• ENDP

• The endpoint field is made up of 4 bits, allowing 16 possible endpoints. Low speed devices, however can only have 2 additional endpoints on top of the default pipe. (4 endpoints max)

• CRC

• Cyclic Redundancy Checks are performed on the data within the packet payload. All token packets have a 5 bit CRC while data packets have a 16 bit CRC.

  EOP

• End of packet. Signalled by a Single Ended Zero (SE0) for approximately 2 bit times followed by a J for 1 bit time.