UART FIFO with DMA on STM32

The UART on the STM32 can be a little tricky to configure for receiving high throughput data. Most peripherals on the STM32 rely on the DMA for high throughput. The I2S for example has excellent DMA integration that allows you to stream digital audio.

I2S DMA Operation

For the I2S, it is straightforward to implement the DMA to receive digital audio. You configure the DMA to match the audio format (16/24/32-bit etc). You then choose a frame buffer size and configure the I2S in circular buffer mode. The STM32 interrupts when the frame buffer is half-full and full. When the DMA is filling the second half, you use the processor to access the first half and vice-versa.

The Problem with UART DMA

But using the DMA with the UART is weird. It contrasts with the I2S:

There isn’t an out-of-the-box way to configure the UART to handle this situation. But there is at least one solution that works great.

The Works Great Solution

For a complete solution, we need to add a software FIFO buffer and an idle interrupt with a standard UART DMA circular buffer configuration.

The FIFO Buffer

If you need more background info on FIFOs, check this out: A FIFO Buffer Implementation.

FIFO stands for first-in, first-out. In this case, the DMA reads data from the UART port and writes it to the FIFO buffer. The DMA is configured in circular mode with the half-complete and complete events being serviced.

I like to use the head/tail terminology to describe how a FIFO works. Data is written to the FIFO at the head and read at the tail. The ISR routines moves the head (and tail as needed to discard unread data). The user software moves the tail. If the head and tail are in the same place, the FIFO is empty.

Once a byte arrives on the DMA, the DMA writes to the first location of the FIFO. It doesn’t know it is writing to a FIFO. It is acting as it does with any circular buffer implementation. The next byte is written to location 1 and the next to location 2.

At this point, if the software tried to read the FIFO, it would determine that it is empty because head == tail. The head value stays on zero until one of these happens:

• A idle interrupt
• A half-complete interrupt
• A complete interrupt

When the line goes idle, the ISR will fire and update the value for head.

//code used to increment the head and discard old data
//by advancing the tail
void advance_head(int bytes_received){
  while(bytes_received--){
    head++;
    if( head == fifo_size ){
      head = 0;
    }
    if( head == tail ){
      //this will discard the oldest data
      tail++;
      if( tail == fifo_size ){
        tail = 0;
      }
    }
  }
}

void HAL_UART_RxIdleCallback(UART_HandleTypeDef *huart) {
  bytes_received = 
    fifo_size - 
    __HAL_DMA_GET_COUNTER(huart->hdmarx) 
    - head;
  advance_head(bytes_received);
}

The user can now read the three bytes that arrived.

//you don't want any UART interrupts happening during this time
//also make sure output buffer is >= fifo_size or limit the
//number of bytes read
void read_uart(char * output){
  while(tail != head){
    *(output++) = buffer[tail];
    tail++;
    if( tail == fifo_size ){
      tail = 0;
    }
  }
}

When the DMA half-complete interrupt is serviced, it always sets the head to fifo_size/2. It advances the head and tail just like the idle interrupt does.

void HAL_UART_RxHalfCpltCallback(UART_HandleTypeDef *huart) {
  bytes_received = 
    fifo_size/2
    - head;

  advance_head(bytes_received);
}

Similarly, the head will point to zero after the transfer-complete interrupt fires. If the user software hasn’t read the data, it will be discarded by advancing the tail.

void HAL_UART_RxCpltCallback(UART_HandleTypeDef *huart) {
  bytes_received = 
    fifo_size
    - head;

  advance_head(bytes_received);
}

The End

That’s it. The UART DMA implementation on STM32 MCUs is a bit tricky but using a FIFO buffer and the idle interrupt, you can make it work great.

You can find a full code example here.