Talking to a 4094 shift register using the USCI module

[davebranton 11]

Hi,

 

I'm building a simple LED matrix display, using 4094's to drive the columns of the matrices, and I would like to use the universal serial module to clock the data into the shift registers.

 

So I set up a simple test, and had the serial module clock out 7 bits (I have three 7x5 matrix panels, and at first I'm just using one), but I didn't see the results I expected. When I got a scope on the outputs, I saw the serial module clocking out 11 bits! I had to set the bit counter register USICNT to 4 to convince the serial module to output 7 bits. The code looks something like

//set strobe high
P1OUT |= BIT3;
// load the data (this was a single bit moving through the byte)
USISRL = <data>;
// clock out 7 bits (!!)
USICNT = 4;
// wait until they're out
while(USICNT);
// set strobe low, this will latch the outputs on the shift register
P1OUT &= ~BIT3;

I know that USICNT reaches zero at the point I expect, because I can see the strobe go low when the final bit is clocked out. But what is going on here? Does anyone know why seven bits get clocked out when I set USICNT to four?

 

[davebranton 11]

Well it looks like the culprit was Grace - which I think loaded the USICNT register with 8, causing the SPI clock to start. So by the time I got to my code the clock had already been running for a bit, and so writing 8 to the register caused me to see about 12 bits on the output.

 

Once I threw away the grace project and started again doing everything by hand it all worked fine. I'm going to start another thread about this project because it involves a couple of custom boards and I don't want to have my stupid question at the top of the thread

[spirilis 1,265]

I think you meant USI in the title not USCI...

 

Haven't read your code in detail yet but be aware there's an errata bug in USI modules--the very first xfer you do will send 1 more bit than you intended.

 

I get around that in my code implementations by doing a strawman xfer after initialization with none of the Chip Select lines for the attached peripherals active.

 

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