Serial Communication

What Communication Functions are Necessary for the MCU?

Communication functionality plays a crucial role in enabling exchanging data between an MCU and external devices, such as other MCUs, sensors, and external memory. This capability allows the MCU to perform more flexible and efficient processing.
Communication can be broadly categorized into two types: serial communication, which transmits multi-bit data one bit at a time, and parallel communication that transfers multiple bits of data simultaneously. Serial communication requires only one signal line, while parallel communication utilizes 8 signal lines for 8-bit data.

In MCUs, serial communication is widely used to reduce the number of pins required for data transmission.
Serial communication includes both asynchronous communication, which uses start and stop signals without a clock signal, and synchronous communication that synchronizes data transmission with a clock signal.