Eurotech AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual

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AIM104-COM8

8 Channel RS232

PC/104 Board

Technical Manual

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual

Disclaimer

The information in this manual has been carefully checked and is believed to be accurate. Eurotech Ltd assumes no responsibility for any infringements of patents or other rights of third parties, which may result from its use.

Eurotech Ltd assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies that may be contained in this document. Eurotech Ltd makes no commitment to update or keep current the information contained in this manual.

Eurotech Ltd reserves the right to make improvements to this document and/or product at any time and without notice.

Warranty

This product is supplied with a 3 year limited warranty. The product warranty covers failure of any Eurotech Ltd manufactured product caused by manufacturing defects. The warranty on all third party manufactured products utilised by Eurotech Ltd is limited to 1 year. Eurotech Ltd will make all reasonable effort to repair the product or replace it with an identical variant. Eurotech Ltd reserves the right to replace the returned product with an alternative variant or an equivalent fit, form and functional product. Delivery charges will apply to all returned product s. Please check about Product Return Forms.

Trademarks

Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks recognised.

www.eurotech-ltd.co.uk for information

Revision History

Manual PCB Date Comments

Issue A V1.1 September 29th, 2004 First full release of manual.

Issue B V1.1 September 25th, 2006 Minor modifications.

Issue

V1.1 December 21st, 2007 Minor updates, Eurotech rebranding.

18.

ISO 9001 FM12961

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Contents

Introduction........................................................................................................................................4

Handling your board safely....................................................................................................5

About this manual..............................................................................................................................6

Conventions...........................................................................................................................6

What items are provided?..................................................................................................................7

Getting started ...................................................................................................................................7

Unpacking and connecting up................................................................................................7

Description.........................................................................................................................................8

I/O map..............................................................................................................................................9

UART structure....................................................................................................................10

Interrupts..........................................................................................................................................11

Jumpers...........................................................................................................................................12

Default settings....................................................................................................................12

Cable connections ...........................................................................................................................17

Appendix A – Contacting Eurotech Ltd............................................................................................18

Appendix B – Connector details.......................................................................................................19

Appendix C – Notes on using the 16C550 UART............................................................................21

Appendix D – RoHS-6 Compliance - Materials Declaration Form...................................................23

Index................................................................................................................................................24

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Introduction

Introduction

The AIM104-COM8 is an 8-bit or 16-bit PC/104 module that provides up to eight RS232 asynchronous communications channels.

Variants

There is only one standard variant of the this board:

• AIM104-COM8 : Eight channel RS232 PC/104 board.

A four channel version of the board may also be available for volume orders. Please contact the Eurotech Ltd sales team for information on this variant.

Features

• Eight 16C550 compatible UART channels.

• Transfer rates up to 115.2Kbaud supported.

• +5V only operation.

• All channels can appear as a block anywhere in I/O address range 000-3FFh.

• First four channels can be individually set as standard PC/AT COM1-4.

• Each QUART (Quad-UART) can drive one link-selectable IRQ in the range 3, 4,

5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15.

• The two QUART interrupts can be combined to drive one IRQ.

• PC/104 16 bit interface (but can be used in 8-bit slot if IRQ10, 11 and 15 are not

required).

• Zero wait state bus operation capability.

• Board access LED.

• Interrupt activity LED.

• TxD/RxD activity indicator LEDs on all channels.

• Power requirements: 220 mA (typical) at +5V DC.

• Temperature range: -20°C (-4°F) to +70°C (158°F) operating.

-40°C (-40°F) to +125°C (125°F) storage.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Introduction

Handling your board safely

Anti-static handling

This board contains CMOS devices. These could be damaged in the event of static electricity being discharged through them. Observe anti-static precautions at all times when handling circuit boards. This includes storing boards in appropriate anti-static packaging and wearing a wrist strap when handling them.

Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)

The AIM104-COM8 is classified as a ‘component’ with regard to the European Community EMC regulations and it is the user’s responsibility to ensure that systems using the board are compliant with the appropriate EMC standards.

Packaging

The AIM104-COM8 has been designed to minimise noise emissions generated by the high frequency host PC/104 system. It includes filter components on all serial I/O lines. It is possible to capacitively couple the board ground to the chassis using metal pillars and fastenings at the mounting hole marked ‘CHASSIS’. This is shown in the following diagram:

Should a board need to be returned to Eurotech Ltd, please ensure that it is adequately packed, preferably in the original packing material.

RoHS compliance

The European RoHS Directive (Restriction on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances – Directive 2002/95/EC) limits the amount of six specific substances within the composition of the product. The AIM104-COM8 is available as an RoHS-6 compliant option and is identified by an -R6 suffix in the product order code. A full RoHS Compliance Materials Declaration Form is included in

Compliance - Materials Declaration Form

compliance is available on the Eurotech Ltd web site:

, page 23. Further information about RoHS

www.eurotech-ltd.co.uk

Appendix D – RoHS-6

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual About this manual

About this manual

This manual describes the operation and use of the AIM104-COM8 PC/104 module. It is both a reference and user manual and includes information about all aspects of the module.

Conventions

Symbols

The following symbols are used in this guide:

Symbol Explanation

Note - information that requires your attention.

Tip - a handy hint that may provide a useful alternative or save time.

Caution – proceeding with a course of action may damage your equipment or result in loss of data.

Terminology

To prevent confusion with the standard PC AT nomenclature of COM1-4, this manual refers to the channels on the AIM104-COM8 as 0-7. Where this manual specifies COM1-4, this refers to the standard PC AT communications ports.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual What items are provided?

What items are provided?

The AIM104-COM8 is supplied with the following items:

• The AIM104-COM8 board.

• Mounting kit.

Getting started

Unpacking and connecting up

To begin using the AIM104-COM8 board, follow these steps:

1 Power down your computer. 2 Install the board in a spare PCI slot. 3 Power up your computer and install the appropriate driver available from our

website

www.eurotech-ltd.co.uk/en/downloads.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Description

Description

The AIM104-COM8 uses two 16C550 type Quad-UART chips to provide eight standard PC AT type serial channels which are supported by a wide range of third party software and standard operating systems.

All channels are buffered to RS232 levels, supporting all the signals found on a PC AT type 9-pin RS232 port.

The simplest I/O address mapping has the eight serial channels appearing as eight bytes each, next to each other, based at any 16-byte boundary in the I/O map from 000-3FFh.

Channels 0-3 can be individually relocated at standard PC AT communications channel addresses for COM1-4 respectively. See

addresses

, page 15, for further details about address mapping.

JP3 - Channel re-mapping to COM

Each QUART has its own interrupt line that can be linked to any of the following PC/104 interrupts: IRQ3-5, 7, 9-12, 14-15.

The interrupt lines from the second QUART chips can be merged with the first to drive a single IRQ line.

The AIM104-COM8 has a 16 bit PC/104 connector but utilises only interrupt lines IRQ10, 11 12, 14 and 15 on the J5 connector. This means that the board can also be used in an 8 bit PC/104 slot providing these interrupt lines are not required.

A further link on the AIM104-COM8 allows zero wait state operation of the PC/104 bus. (This is dependant on the PC/104 CPU board supporting this option.)

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual I/O map

I/O map

The I/O mapping allows a flexible configuration to be achieved. At its simplest, the UART’s appear as an array of eight contiguous ports with eight bytes for each UART. The base address can be set at any 16-byte boundary.

Channels 0-3 can also be individually relocated at standard PC/AT communications channel addresses for COM1-4 respectively. As this is done, these channels ‘disappear’ from the group until only the last four remain. When that happens, the board logic knows that it has only 32 bytes in the group and so decodes those channels as a 32byte block.

PC COM port locations

Group addressed map

000 ... base address

000

+08 Channel 1

...

02E8-2EF COM4 +10 Channel 2

02F8-2FF COM2 +20 Channel 4

+18 Channel 3

+00 Channel 0

03E8-3EF COM3 +30 Channel 6

03F8-3FF COM1

+28 Channel 5

+38 Channel 7

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual I/O map

UART structure

Each channel occupies 8 bytes of I/O space with the following registers defined:

Offset Register Read Write

+1 IER Interrupt Enable Register +2 ISR/FCR Interrupt Status Register FIFO Control Register +3 LCR Line Control Register +4 MCR Modem Control Register +5 LSR Line Status Register +6 MSR Modem Status Register +7 SCR Scratchpad Register

+0 DLL LSB of Divisor Latch +1 DLM MSB of Divisor Latch.

RHR/THR

Receive Holding Register Transmit Holding

(DLAB [ICR:7] set)

Baud Rate Register

(DLAB [ICR:7] clear)

General

If you are planning to write your own low level software for the AIM104-COM8, refer to the datasheet for the Exar ST16C554 device. This is available to download from

www.exar.com.

You can also download some example C source code from

www.eurotech-ltd.co.uk.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Interrupts

Interrupts

The first four channels drive one shared interrupt line and the last four channels drive another. These IRQ lines can be selected from IRQ3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, or 15.

IRQs 10, 11, 12, 14, and 15 are only available when the AIM104-COM8 is used in a 16 bit PC/104 stack.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Jumpers

Jumpers

There are four user-selectable jumpers on the AIM104-COM8. These are used to configure the I/O address and the interrupt line for each QUART.

Default settings

The default positions of the jumpers are as follows:

Refer to the documentation supplied with your CPU card to establish which spare I/O and interrupt channels to use.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Jumpers

JP1 - Interrupt selection

The JP1 jumper is used to set the IRQ line for each group of four serial port channels. The A position is used for channels 0-3 and the B position for channels 4-7.

JP1 Line Function when fitted

IRQ3 Routes IRQ line to IRQ3 IRQ4 Routes IRQ line to IRQ4 IRQ5 Routes IRQ line to IRQ5 IRQ7 Routes IRQ line to IRQ7 IRQ9 Routes IRQ line to IRQ9 IRQ10 Routes IRQ line to IRQ10 IRQ11 Routes IRQ line to IRQ11 IRQ12 Routes IRQ line to IRQ12 IRQ14 Routes IRQ line to IRQ14 IRQ15 Routes IRQ line to IRQ15

A B

When jumper JP3 (see page 15) is set to ‘IRQ’, side A is for all channels and the signal on side B becomes tri-stated so that it does not interrupt on both sides. In this case, the link on side B should be removed.

Channels 0-3 share the same interrupt line, while 4-7 share another. You cannot, for instance, set COM1/COM3 to use IRQ4 and COM2/COM4 to use IRQ3, which are the PC defaults.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Jumpers

JP2 - Group base address selection

The JP2 jumper is used to set the I/O base address for the serial ports. The default jumper settings configure all of the serial ports at a 64-byte contiguous I/O space from this address location.

The base address is always decoded to a 16-byte boundary. Fitting the link sets the address line to zero for the decode. Leaving the link off means that the corresponding address line must be a logic ‘1’ to select the board.

JP2 Line Function when fitted

A9 Sets A9 in I/O address decode to 0 A8 Sets A8 in I/O address decode to 0 A7 Sets A7 in I/O address decode to 0 A6 Sets A6 in I/O address decode to 0 A5 Sets A5 in I/O address decode to 0 A4 Sets A4 in I/O address decode to 0

The default base address is 0x100, to avoid conflicts with common PC I/O maps. In order to achieve this fit all links apart from A8. Check your system I/O map for conflicts before use.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Jumpers

JP3 - Channel re-mapping to COM addresses

You can individually re-map channels 0 to 3 at the standard COM port addresses. When these channels are mapped at COM ports they vanish from the group. This prevents the host seeing them in two places.

If all four are mapped in that way, the group size falls to 32 bytes and channels 4 to 7 begin at the base address.

You should avoid addressing conflicts due to the group decoding overlapping COM decoding. If there is a conflict, then the group decoding applies and any conflicting COM decoded channel.

The decoding logic above ensures the minimum use of scarce I/O locations.

JP3 Line Function when fitted

OPT0 Channel 0 remapped to COM1 OPT1 Channel 1 remapped to COM2 OPT2 Channel 2 remapped to COM3 OPT3 Channel 3 remapped to COM4 OPT4 Disables I/O address decoding for channels 4 to 7 IRQ Combines interrupts from both quad-UART chip s into

one (side A on links below)

Interrupt merging: each quad-UART chip can assert an individual IRQ line, but in systems where IRQ lines are scarce they can be combined into one for both chips.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Jumpers

JP4 - Wait state behaviour selection

Computers normally wait for a fixed time for PC104 bus access. If the zero wait state (0WS) is selected this waiting is skipped and the signal is asserted as soon as the board decodes a valid address. This can shorten the amount of time spent accessing the board in some situations.

JP4 Description

Waits for bus access.

Default setting:

Zero wait.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Cable connections

Cable connections

The serial I/O connectors have been wired so that they can be easily split into 9-way male D-sub connectors with standard pin-outs for PC/AT RS232 serial ports:

The table below shows the corresponding channel and connector pinouts.

40 way IDC ribbon header Male 9 way IDC D-sub Channel Pinout

Pins 1-9 Pins 1-9 0 PC/AT RS232 port Pins 11-19 Pins 1-9 1 PC/AT RS232 port Pins 21-29 Pins 1-9 2 PC/AT RS232 port Pins 31-39 Pins 1-9 3 PC/AT RS232 port

The same cabling applies to both of the 40-way boxed headers.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Appendix A – Contacting Eurotech Ltd

Appendix A – Contacting Eurotech Ltd

Eurotech Ltd sales

Eurotech Ltd’s sales team is always available to assist you in choosing the board that best meets your requirements.

Eurotech Ltd 3 Clifton Court Cambridge CB1 7BN UK

Tel: +44 (0)1223 403410 Fax: +44 (0)1223 410457 Email:

sales@eurotech-ltd.co.uk

Comprehensive information about our products is also available at our web site:

www.eurotech-ltd.co.uk.

While Eurotech Ltd’s sales team can assist you in making your decision, the final choice of boards or systems is solely and wholly the responsibility of the buyer. Eurotech Ltd’s entire liability in respect of the boards or systems is as set out in Eurotech Ltd’s standard terms and conditions of sale. If you intend to write your own low level software, you can start with the source code on the disk supplied. This is example code only to illustrate use on Eurotech Ltd’s products. It has not been commercially tested. No warranty is made in respect of this code and Eurotech Ltd shall incur no liability whatsoever or howsoever arising from any use made of the code.

Eurotech Ltd technical support

Eurotech Ltd has a team of dedicated technical support engineers available to provide a quick response to your technical queries.

Tel: +44 (0)1223 412428 Fax: +44 (0)1223 410457 Email:

support@eurotech-ltd.co.uk

Eurotech Ltd Group

Eurotech Ltd is a subsidiary of Eurotech Group. For further details see

www.eurotech.com

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Appendix B – Connector details

Appendix B – Connector details

The serial port connections are routed to two 40-way headers on the AIM104-COM8. One of these connectors, J3, has the channel 0 – 3 signals and the other, J1, has the channel 4 – 7 signals. The pinout details for these connectors are shown below:

J3 channel 0 – 3

Connector: 40 way, 2.54mm (0.1”) x 2.54mm (0.1”) dual row right angle boxed header. Mating Connector:

Framatome 71600-040

Pin Signal Name Pin Signal Name

1 3 5 7 9

11 13 15 17 19

21 23

DCD0 RXD0 TXD0 DTR0

GND DCD1

RXD1 TXD1 DTR1

GND DCD2

RXD2

2 4 6 8 10

12 14 16 18 20

22 24

DSR0 RTS0 CTS0 RI0

GND DSR1

RTS1 CTS1 RI1

GND DSR2

RTS2

25 27 29

TXD2 DTR2

GND DCD3

26 28 30

CTS2 RI2

GND DSR3

33 35 37

RXD3 TXD3 DTR3 GND

34 36 38

RTS3 CTS3 RI3 GND

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Appendix B – Connector details

J1 channel 4 - 7

Connector: 40 way, 2.54mm (0.1”) x 2.54mm (0.1”) dual row right angle boxed header Mating Connector:

Framatome 71600-040

Pin Signal Name Pin Signal Name

1 3 5 7 9

11 13 15 17 19

21 23

DCD4 RXD4 TXD4 DTR4

GND DCD5

RXD5 TXD5 DTR5

GND DCD6

RXD6

2 4 6 8 10

12 14 16 18 20

22 24

DSR4 RTS4 CTS4 RI4

GND DSR5

RTS5 CTS5 RI5

GND DSR6

RTS6

25 27 29

31 33

35 37

TXD6 DTR6

GND DCD7

RXD7 TXD7 DTR7 GND

26 28 30

32 34

36 38

CTS6 RI6

GND DSR7

RTS7 CTS7 RI7 GND

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Appendix C – Notes on using the 16C550 UART

Appendix C – Notes on using the 16C550 UART

Enabling the interrupt outputs

If you intend to write your own low level UART handler, remember that in order for the UART channel on the AIM104-COM8 to generate interrupts to the host CPU, you must enable the IRQ output from the UART by setting bit 3 in the Modem Control Register (MCR).

Standard driver software does this as part of the port initialisation, so no action is necessary if you are using Eurotech Ltd’s example software or that of a third party vendor.

The receiver FIFO trigger point and timeout

The 16C550 has sixteen byte FIFO’s for both its transmit buffer and receive buffer. This can enhance the performance of the serial ports and reduce the interrupt rate to the main processor. However, it is necessary to set up the receive trigger point optically for your application.

With the FIFO enabled, any character received is added to the 16 byte receive FIFO. This has four programmable trigger points as shown in the following diagram:

Once the FIFO has received sufficient characters to reach the FIFO trigger point, an interrupt is generated that is serviced in order to remove all the characters from the FIFO.

If the FIFO trigger point is set to a value other than 1, a situation may arise where the input data stream stops adding characters to the FIFO before the trigger point is reached. For example, the trigger may be set at eight when only six characters has been received. In this situation the UART generates an IRQ after a specific timeout period from the end of the last character received.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Appendix C – Notes on using the 16C550 UART

The timeout period, expressed in the number of characters can be calculated using the following equation:

(4 x n

Char

) + 12 T = (n

Where: n

Parity + n Char + n Stop +1)

Char is the number of programmed bits per character (5, 6, 7 or 8)

n Parity is the number of programmed parity bits (1 unless no parity) n Stop is the number of stop bits (1 ,1½ or 2)

The actual time for the timeout is simply defined as: (4 x n

Char

) + 12

t =

where: F

Braud

is the baud rate.

Baud

For example, communications at 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit have the following timeout period:

(4 x 8) + 12 44 T = = = 4.4 chars 0 + 8 + 1 + 1 10

(4 x 8) + 12 44 t = = = 4.58 ms 9600 9600

This timeout can significantly impact on the performance of the serial communications within an application. If your serial communications is single character oriented, it is better to set the FIFO trigger point lower and handle more frequent receive interrupts. If your application transfers large blocks of data it is likely to be better to set the FIFO trigger point higher.

Remember that the FIFO trigger point does not define the size of the FIFO; characters are still received after the trigger has been activated until all sixteen positions in the FIFO have been filled.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Appendix D – RoHS-6 Compliance - Materials Declaration Form

Appendix D – RoHS-6 Compliance - Materials Declaration Form

Confirmation of Environmental Compatibility for Supplied Products

Substance Maximum concentration

Lead 0.1% by weight in homogeneous materials Mercury 0.1% by weight in homogeneous materials Hexavalent chromium 0.1% by weight in homogeneous materials Polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) 0.1% by weight in homogeneous materials Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) 0.1% by weight in homogeneous materials Cadmium 0.01% by weight in homogeneous materials

The products covered by this certificate include:

Product Name Eurotech Ltd Part Number

AIM104-COM8 AIM104-COM8-R6 (both variants)

Eurotech Ltd has based its material content knowledge on a combination of information provided by third parties and auditing our suppliers and sub-contractor’s operational activities and arrangements. This information is archived within the associated Technical Construction File. Eurotech Ltd has taken reasonable steps to provide representative and accurate information, though may not have conducted destructive testing or chemical analysis on incoming components and materials.

Additionally, packaging used by Eurotech Ltd for its products complies with the EU Directive 2004/12/EC in that the total concentration of the heavy metals cadmium, hexavalent chromium, lead and mercury do not exceed 100 ppm.

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Index

Index

A4-A9 · 14, 15 access LED · 4 address mapping · 8, 15 anti-static · 5 assignments, connector pin · 19, 20

baud rate · 4 behaviour, wait state · 16

channel re-mapping to COM addresses · 15 channel, remap · 8 COM · 4 connector pin assignments · 19, 20 contact details · 18 copyright · 2

DLL · 10 DLM · 10 DTR · 19, 20

EMC · 5 environmental compliance · 5, 23

FCR · 10 FIFO · 21 FIFO control register · 10

GND · 19, 20 group base address · 14 Group base address selection · 14

I/O address configuration · 12 I/O address mapping · 8, 15 I/O map · 9 IER · 10 interrupt · 4, 8, 11 interrupt activity LED · 4 interrupt enable register · 10 Interrupt selection · 13 interrupt status register · 10 IRQ · 8, 11 ISR · 10

JP1 - Interrupt selection · 13 JP2 - Group base address selection · 14 JP3 - Channel re-mapping to COM addresses · 15 JP4 - Wait state behavior selection · 16

LCR · 10 LED · 4

access · 4 interrupt activity · 4 RXD · 4

TXD · 4 line control register · 10 line status register · 10 LSB of divisor latch · 10 LSR · 10

mapping, address · 8, 15 materials declaration form · 23 MCR · 10 modem control register · 10 modem status register · 10 MSB of divisor latch. · 10 MSR · 10

handling · 5

packaging · 5, 17 PC/104 interrupt · 8 power · 4

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AIM104-COM8 Technical Manual Index

QUART · 4, 8

receive holding register · 10 register · 10 remap channel · 8, 15 RoHS-6 compliance · 5, 23 RS232 · 8 RXD · 4, 19, 20

SCR · 10 scratchpad register · 10 source code · 18 static · 5 storage · 5 support, technical · 18

technical support · 18 temperature · 4 trademarks · 2 transmit holding register · 10 trigger point · 21 TXD · 4, 19, 20

uart · 21 UART · 4

voltage · 4

wait state · 16

zero wait state · 4, 8