Designing a learning platform for the implementation of serial standards using ARM microcontroller LPC2148

In embedded system design, managing communication among various bus interfaces and attaching multiple systems with different interfacing protocols to a main processor is one of the challenging tasks. Popular serial interfacing protocols include: USB, I2C, SPI/SSP, CAN and UART for communication between integrated circuits for low/medium data transfer speed with on board peripherals. This paper presents a platform which deals with the implementation of certain of the above serial protocols presented by a low power 32-bit ARM RISC processor: LPC2148, with suitable examples, including hardware and software details. This platform is also useful for students of different disciplines to work with different serial protocols, which helps them in interfacing of sensors, memory ICs, analog subsystems and so on. It also aims to provide the students with hands on experience, practices in embedded systems and minimizing the prerequisite knowledge.