DEVICE DRIVERS AND INTERRUPTS SERVICE

MECHANISM
Lesson-10: Device Driver Multiple
functions in a device

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 1
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 Multiple functions at a Timer device
 Device control registers needs to be
programmed by a device function
 Device performs does timing functions as
well as counting functions
 Delay function and periodic system calls.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 2
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 Multiple functions in a Transceiver device
 A transceiver device control registers needs to be
programmed by a device function
 A transceiver device does transmitting as well as
receiving functions.
 It may not be just a repeater. It may also do the
jabber control and collision control.
 Jabber control means prevention of that it prevent
continuous streams of unnecessary bytes in case of
some system fault.
 Collision control means that it must first sense the
network bus availability then only transmit.
Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and
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 Multiple functions in a device

 Voice-data-fax modem device has

transmitting as well as receiving functions
for voice, fax as well as data.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 4
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 DEVICE DRIVER

 A program that controls the

functioning of a device.
 Every device, whether it be a
peripheral such as printer, LCD display
unit, keypad or an internal device such
as timer, must have a driver.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 5
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 Common driver or the separate drivers
 A common driver or the separate drivers for
each device function are required.
 Device-drivers are the important routines in
a system
 Routines generic functions, such as create
( ), open ( ), connect ( ), listen ( ), accept ( ),
read ( ), write ( ), close ( ), delete ( ) for use
by high level programmers
Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and
2015 6
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 Device Driver
• System has number of physical devices.
A device may have multiple functions.
Each device function is controlled by the
driver
• The driver provides a software layer
(interface) between application and the
actual device.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 7
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 Device Application programmer using
the generic commands
• The driver facilitates the use of device by
using the generic commands sent by
application program-steps.
• Once a driver is available, application
programmer does not need to know any
thing about the mechanism, addresses,
registers, bits and flags used by the device.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 8
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 Device Driver Function
 The driver function is to translate a
generic command in an application
(user software) into specific set of
commands that the device understands.
 Generic command means a command
used for the number of devices or
device groups.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 9
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 DEVICE DRIVER
 Many times, the drivers, such as the
keypad driver, LCD display unit driver,
modem driver, are available to an
application program from the operating
system.

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2015 10
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 DEVICE DRIVER
• Several times, drivers, such as LCD display
unit driver for the multilingual display, not
available at the OS have to written by the
application programmer or sourced from
other programmer for an embedded system

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 Driver routine as a black box
 Simple commands from a task or function
can then drive the device.
 Once a driver is available, application
developer does not have to know the any
thing about the mechanism, addresses,
registers, bits and flags used by the device.
 For example, consider a case when system
clock is to be set to tick every 10000 μs
(100 times each second).
Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and
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Driver routine OS_Ticks (100) as a black box
 The user of OS for the application simply makes a
call to function like OS_Ticks (100)
 It is not necessary for the user this function to
know which timer device will do that.
 What are the addresses, which, will be used by the
driver? Which will be the device register where
value 100 for the ticks registers?
 What are the control bits that will be set or reset?

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 13
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 Driver routine OS_Ticks (100)
 When runs, simply interrupts the system and
executes the software interrupt (SWI) instruction
which calls the signaled routine (driver) for the
system ticking device.
 Then the driver, which executes will takes 100 as
input and will configures the real time clock to let
the system clock tick each 10000 μs and generate
continuously the system clock interrupts
continuously every 10000 μs to get 100 ticks each
second

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 14
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 Device driver accesses to the device
 Accesses the device through interrupt (s),
and drives a peripheral device or internal
device through generic commands.
 User don’t have to write codes when OS
provides the drivers.
 A device’s file descriptor is shared by the
commands and interrupt service routines,
which execute those commands.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 15
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 Application Program Access to a Device
 Access to a device is by using generic
commands of the driver.
 When a command executes in application
program, device driver generates an
interrupt (using an SWI instruction, such as
INT n or SWI m) to the device occurs.
 An interrupt service routine corresponding
to that command is then executed.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 16
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 DEVICE DRIVER
• Several times, drivers, such as LCD display
unit driver for the multilingual display, not
available at the OS have to written by the
application programmer or sourced from
other programmer for an embedded system

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 17
Design", Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill Education
 A Device Driver Command
 A device may be configured

(commanded), for example, configured

to read or write or read and write both
through the port address (es).
• Device may be set to function in
different modes. For example, mode 0
for one data transfer rate, 1 for another.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 18
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 File descriptor
• A general term File descriptor refers to
device descriptor data structure
• A data structure accessed by the
programmer using an integer number, fd

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 19
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 Driver Generic commands examples

• fd = open (“device1”, O_RDWR, 0) in

an application.
 Means configure the device at address
device1 for the read as well as write
operations and set the device for mode
0 functions. fd1 is device1 descriptor
pointer, which open function returns.

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2015 20
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 Descriptor
Routine addresses for the open,
write, read, close and other functions
Device port address(es)
Device Status, Mode, Present config.
Read buffer start and end addresses
Write buffer start and end addresses
Current cursor position address(es)
for read or write or read-write.
Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and
2015 21
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 Cursor
 Current cursor address is an address
from address at the buffer from where
the read (operation) will be done on
next read command or to where the
write (operation) will be done in next
write operation. For example, cursor in
an LCD display means the address
(position) for the write (then display)
from which line number (row) which
character number (column).
Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and
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 Driver Generic commands example 2

• write (fd1, device1, 1024) in the

application means write into the device
buffer 1024 Bytes from current cursor
position. Device if set in mode 0 then
transmit from the buffer at the rate
defined for its mode 0 operation.
Device descriptor is at fd1.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 23
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 Driver Generic commands example 3

• msg1 = read (fd1, device1, 32) in the

application means (a) device is device
at address (b) descriptor is at fd1 (c)
read and save at msg1 from the device
buffer the 32 Bytes from current cursor
position.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 24
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 Driver Generic commands example 4

• fd1 = close (device1) in an application

means close the device1 and save the device
current status after close operation. The
device can now be reused only after first
executing open function.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 25
Design", Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill Education
 Device Types

 For each type of device, there is a set

of the generic commands.
 For example, for char device one set
of commands and for block device
there can be another set.

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2015 26
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 Summary

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 27
Design", Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill Education
We learnt
(i) The driver accepts generic commands
from an application or OS program and
then translates each command into a
set of specialized commands for the
device.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 28
Design", Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill Education
We learnt
 (ii) The driver provides a software

layer (interface) between

application and the actual device.
(iii) A device is configured and
initialized by the function ‘open’ of
the driver.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 29
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We learnt
 (v) A device is deactivated by the

function ‘close’ at the driver.

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 30
Design", Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill Education
 End of Lesson 10 of Chapter 6
on
Device Driver Multiple functions in a
device

Chapter-6 L10: "Embedded Systems - Architecture, Programming and

2015 31
Design", Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill Education