Communication with ESP SDIO Slave¶

ESP SDIO slave initialization¶

The host should initialize the ESP32 SDIO slave according to the standard SDIO initialization process (Sector 3.1.2 of SDIO Simplified Specification). In this specification and below, the SDIO slave is also called an (SD)IO card. All the initialization CMD52 and CMD53 are sent to Func 0 (CIA region). Here is an brief example on how to do this:

SDIO reset

CMD52 (Write 0x6=0x8)
SD reset

CMD0
Check whether IO card (optional)

CMD8
Send SDIO op cond and wait for card ready

CMD5 arg = 0x00000000

CMD5 arg = 0x00ff8000 (according to the response above, poll until ready)

Example:

Arg of R4 after first CMD5 (arg=0x00000000) is 0xXXFFFF00.

Keep sending CMD5 with arg=0x00FFFF00 until the R4 shows card ready (arg bit 31=1).
Set address

CMD3
Select card

CMD7 (arg address according to CMD3 response)

Example:

Arg of R6 after CMD3 is 0x0001xxxx.

Arg of CMD7 should be 0x00010000.
Select 4-bit mode (optional)

CMD52 (Write 0x07=0x02)
Enable func1

CMD52 (Write 0x02=0x02)
Enable SDIO interrupt (required if interrupt line (DAT1) is used)

CMD52 (Write 0x04=0x03)
Set Func0 blocksize (optional, default value is 512 (0x200))

CMD52/53 (Read 0x10~0x11)

CMD52/53 (Write 0x10=0x00)

CMD52/53 (Write 0x11=0x02)

CMD52/53 (Read 0x10~0x11, read to check the final value)
Set Func1 blocksize (optional, default value is 512 (0x200))

CMD52/53 (Read 0x110~0x111)

CMD52/53 (Write 0x110=0x00)

CMD52/53 (Write 0x111=0x02)

CMD52/53 (Read 0x110~0x111, read to check the final value)

ESP SDIO slave protocol¶

The protocol is based on Function 1 access by CMD52 and CMD53, offering 3 services: (1) sending and receiving FIFO, (2) 52 8-bit R/W register shared by host and slave, (3) 8 general purpose interrupt sources from host to slave and 8 in the opposite direction.

There is a component esp_serial_slave_link implementing the logic of this protocol for ESP32 master to communicate with the ESP32 slave. See ESP Serial Slave Link.

The host should access the registers below as described to communicate with slave.

Slave register table¶

32-bit¶

0x044 (TOKEN_RDATA): in which bit 27-16 holds the receiving buffer number.
0x058 (INT_ST): holds the interrupt source bits from slave to host.
0x060 (PKT_LEN): holds the accumulated length (by byte) to be sent from slave to host.
0x0D4 (INT_CLR): write 1 to clear interrupt bits corresponding to INT_ST.
0x0DC (INT_ENA): mask bits for interrupts from slave to host.

8-bit¶

Shared general purpose registers:

0x06C-0x077: R/W registers 0-11 shared by slave and host.
0x07A-0x07B: R/W registers 14-15 shared by slave and host.
0x07E-0x07F: R/W registers 18-19 shared by slave and host.
0x088-0x08B: R/W registers 24-27 shared by slave and host.
0x09C-0x0BB: R/W registers 32-63 shared by slave and host.

Interrupt Registers: - 0x08D (SLAVE_INT): bits for host to interrupt slave. auto clear.

FIFO (sending and receiving)¶

0x090 - 0x1F7FF are reserved for FIFOs.

The address of CMD53 is related to the length requested to read from/write to the slave in a single transfer:

requested length = 0x1F800-address

The slave will respond with the length according to the length field in CMD53, with the data longer than requested length filled with 0 (sending) or discard (receiving).

Note

This includes both the block and the byte mode of CMD53.

The function number should be set to 1, OP Code should be set to 1 (for CMD53).

It is allowed to use CMD53 mode combination of block+byte to get higher effeciency when accessing the FIFO by arbitrary length. E.g. The block size is set to 512 by default, you can write/get 1031 bytes of data to/from the FIFO by:

Send CMD53 in block mode, block count=2 (1024 bytes) to address 0x1F3F9=0x1F800-1031.
Then send CMD53 in byte mode, byte count=8 (or 7 if your controller supports that) to address 0x1F7F9=0x1F800-7.

Interrupts¶

For the host interrupts, the slave raise the interrupt by pulling DAT1 line down at a proper time (level sensitive). The host detect this and read the INT_ST register to see the source. Then the host can clear it by writing the INT_CLR register and do something with the interrupt. The host can also mask unneeded sources by clearing the bits in INT_ENA register corresponding to the sources. If all the sources are cleared (or masked), the DAT1 line goes inactive.

sdio_slave_hostint_t (SDIO Card Slave Driver) shows the bit definition corresponding to host interrupt sources.

For the slave interrupts, the host send transfers to write the SLAVE_INT register. Once a bit is written from 0 to 1, the slave hardware and driver will detect it and inform the app.

Receiving FIFO¶

To write the receiving FIFO in the slave, host should work in the following steps:

Read the TOKEN1 field (bits 27-16) of TOKEN_RDATA (0x044) register. The buffer number remaining is TOKEN1 minus the number of buffers used by host.
Make sure the buffer number is sufficient (recv_buffer_size * buffer_num is greater than data to write, recv_buffer_size is pre-defined between the host and the slave before the communication starts). Or go back to step 1 until the buffer is enough.
Write to the FIFO address with CMD53. Note that the requested length should not be larger than calculated in step 2, and the FIFO address is related to rquested length.
Calculate used buffers, note that non-full buffer at the tail should be seen as one that is used.

Sending FIFO¶

To read the sending FIFO in the slave, host should work in the following steps:

Wait for the interrupt line to be active (optional, low by default).
Read (poll) the interrupt bits in INT_ST register to see whether new packets exists.
If new packets are ready, reads the PKT_LEN reg. The data length to read from slave is PKT_LEN minuses the length that has been read from the host. If the PKT_LEN is not larger than used, wait and poll until the slave is ready and update the PKT_LEN.
Read from the FIFO with CMD53. Note that the requested length should not be larger than calculated in step3, and the FIFO address is related to requested length.
Recored read length.