
8.1.2 SPI Bus Mode Protocol
The Serial Parallel Interface (SPI) Bus is a general purpose synchronous serial interface. The SPI mode consists of a
secondary communication protocol. The interface is selected during the first reset command after power up
(CMD0) and it cannot be changed once the card is powered on.
While the SD channel is based on command and data bit streams which are initiated by a start bit and
terminated by a stop bit, the SPI channel is byte oriented. Every command or data block is built of 8-bit bytes
and is byte aligned to the CS signal.
The card identification and addressing methods are replaced by a hardware Chip Select (CS) signal. There are no
broadcast commands. For every command, a card (slave) is selected by asserting (active low) the CS signal.
The CS signal must be continuously active for the duration of the SPI transaction (command, response and data).
The only exception occurs during card programming, when the host can de-assert the CS signal without affecting
the programming process.
The bidirectional CMD and DAT lines are replaced by unidirectional dataIn and dataOut signals.
The SPI bus signals are listed Table 19 and the SPI bus topology is illustrated in
Figure 9.Table 19: SPI Bus Signals
Signal
/CS
CLK
Data In
Data Out
Vdd, Vss
Description
Host to card chip select
Host to card clock signal
Host to card data signal
Card to host data signal
Power and ground
Figure 9: SPI bus topology
8.1.3 Mode Selection
The SD Memory Card wakes up in the SD mode. It will enter SPI mode if the CS signal is asserted (negative) during
the reception of the reset command (CMD0) and the card is in idle_state . If the card recognizes that the SD mode
is required it will not respond to the command and remain in the SD mode.
If SPI mode is required the card will switch to SPI and respond with the SPI mode R1 response.
The only way to return to the SD mode is by entering the power cycle. In SPI mode the SD Memory Card protocol
state machine is not observed. All the SD Memory Card commands supported in SPI mode are always available.
During the initialization sequence, if the host gets Illegal Command indication for ACMD41 sent to the card, it may
assume that the card is Multimedia Card. In that case it should re-start the card as Multimedia Card using CMD0
and CMD1.
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CH-9552 Bronschhofen
Switzerland
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