Front-end path

Hardware Protocols

Chips are built from many blocks that must exchange data over agreed interfaces. This path covers the protocols every RTL and SoC engineer is expected to know: the VALID/READY handshake, the AMBA on-chip buses APB, AHB, and AXI, and the serial interfaces SPI, I2C, and UART, with clear comparisons of when each is used.

8
lessons
1 h 4 min
of reading
Intermediate
level
Free
every lesson

Lessons

8 lessons · 1 h 4 min
  1. 01Why Chips Need ProtocolsHow blocks and chips agree on how to talk6 min
  2. 02The VALID/READY HandshakeThe one idea behind every modern on-chip bus8 min
  3. 03APB: The Simple Peripheral BusThe easy AMBA bus for slow peripherals8 min
  4. 04AHB: The Pipelined BusAddress and data overlap for higher throughput8 min
  5. 05AXI: The High-Performance InterfaceFive independent channels for maximum throughput11 min
  6. 06SPI: Fast Four-Wire SerialSimple, full-duplex, master-driven clock7 min
  7. 07I2C: Two-Wire Addressable BusTwo wires, many devices, built-in acknowledge8 min
  8. 08UART: Clockless Asynchronous SerialNo clock wire, agreed baud rate, simple framing8 min