Category: Sensor-Module Interfacing with S32K3 MCU’s

Table of Contents Many of you may be familiar with the RFID module MFRC522, but I’m willing to bet that most of you have only interfaced this module with an Arduino and the Arduino IDE environment. However, if you need to use the RFID module with other MCUs, you may find yourself at a loss for how to proceed. If this is the case, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, I will show you how to create a device driver for the RFID Module MFRC522, allowing you to interface it with any Host MCU. If you’re not sure what we mean by interfacing with a Host MCU or why it’s necessary, be sure to check out our blog for more information. Continuing with the MFRC522 RFID reader interfacing to host MCU, Objective would be to interface this module with Host MCU’s like of NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics or other vendors MCU’s. Will make the driver to interface the RFID Reader with any MCU, not unlike just with Arduino and Arduino IDE environment. You just need to change 2-3 low level API’s for running it on different MCU’s, would be telling about it in below sections. In this blog we are going to write the driver in c++ language. Before proceeding further would recommend viewers go through, the following set of blogs and videos to have a better understanding. Prerequite, better to have:  Viewers can refer to this blog to know about RFID technology in detail. or can watch this video which is in animated format to know about RFID technology. RFID Reader MFRC522: Overview and Datasheet Explanation( Highly recommended to go through at first) MIFRAME RFID Tags: Overview and Datasheet Explanation About Serial Communication Protocols To know about What are Microcontrollers and introduction on them Hardware Connection of MFRC522 Reader module MFRC522 Module has 8 pins exposed out, which can be categorised into 3 parts: Communication pins, Power Supply Pins and Additional Pins. As explained below Communication Pins Power Supply Pins Additional Pins Logic Analyzer Communication Pins 4 pins are communication pins, that would be connected to Host MCU either using SPI, I2C, or UART. MFRC522 Communication Pins We would be making the connection using the SPI peripheral. Here I am referencing out hardware connection with 2 microcontrollers: NXP Semiconductors S32K144 MCU and STMicroelectronics STM32F103 MCU. STMicroelectronics STM32F103 would be using SPI-1 Instance and S32K144 would be using LPSPI-0 Instance.  Power Supply Pins 2 pins are for Power Supply Connection, which would be used for powering the RFID reader. One can power the MFRC522 Reader via Host MCU. Connect the VCC and GND pins with the Host MCU Power pins. Make sure, you supply MFRC522 with 3.3 V, don’t power it with 5V. MFRC522 Power supply connections Additional Pins There are 2 additional pins on MFRC522: IRQ and RST pins. IRQ pin is an interrupt pin, that is used for alerting the HOST MCU  when an RFID tag is in the vicinity. Read about the IRQ pin and interrupts in MFRC522 from here. RST pin would be not used for this project. Logic Analyzer These connections are for debugging and understanding purposes. By connecting the logic analyzers, we would be able to see how literally SPI communication and what commands we are sending, and what responses we are getting in bit and byte levels. Would recommend doing this step, as it makes the understanding clear at the root level. It would hardly take a couple of minutes to setup this. For connecting the logic analyzer, connect the Channel1,3,5,7 of the logic analyzer with communication pins. I am using the Salae logic analyzer, which is readily available. viewers can refer to this video on Gettobyte Youtube channel on how to set up logic analyzer connections, hardware, and software. Logic Analyzer MFRC522 Functional Description API’s MFRC522 has a set of functional descriptions, on which the whole of the working of MFRC522 depends. To write the driver of MFRC522, it’s important to have an understanding of those functional blocks. Reading from the datasheet could be tiering, hence viewers can read and understand from here. MFRC522 Host Interfaces MFRC522 FIFO MFRC522 CRC MFRC522 Interrupts MFRC522 Time Unit MFRC522 Command Set MFRC522 Host Interfaces MFRC522 Host Interface API’s We are going to connect MFRC522 via the SPI interface to the host MCU. SPI configurations: MSB is sent first 8 Bits per transfer The clock is Low when inactive(CPOL=0) Data is valid on Clock Leading Edge(CPHA=0) Enable line is Active LOW SPI Address Byte These address bytes are of 6 bits. When sending the address byte, MSB should tell whether we have to perform a read/write operation on that address. LSB is always set to logic 0 when sending the address byte. Thus you would find in the below driver that MFRC522 registers which are defined in GB_MFRC522.h have been left shifted 1 bit so that the MSB bit can be configured whether to perform a Read or write operation on that register address. SPI Read Data To read the data, Host MCU will send the register address at the MOSI line with LSB as 1 and then in MISO, it would get the data. This would be performed via a low-level function, that is reading one single byte from the address GB_reg which is sent in its argument. uint8_t GB_MFRC522_ReadRegister(PCD_Register GB_reg); For e,g we have to read the version of the MFRC522, which can be done via VersionReg(ox37): uint8_t v = GB_MFRC522_ReadRegister(VersionReg); So it would be left shifted first: 0x37<<1 = 0x6E(So that can configure MSB for read and Write operation). And then as we want to perform a read operation at this register, so need to write MSB with 1. We will Or above value with 0x80( See definition of uint8_t GB_MFRC522_ReadRegister(PCD_Register GB_reg): 0x6E | 0x80 = 0xEE. As per the datasheet, reading this register would give either 0x92 or 0x91.(Refer the datasheet for in-depth-description of this register). In logic analyzer reading from the  MFRC522 would look like this: MFRC522 version