Serial data received from pc and displayed on 16x2 lcd using 8051(89c51,89c52) microcontroller UART port

In this post i am going to explain how to receive serial data from your pc and display it on 16×2 lcd using 89c51 microcontroller UART port. Hardware components of the project includes max232(TTL to RS232 level converter/shifter ), 8051(89c51,89c52) microcontroller and 16×2 lcd. On software side i am using Hyper terminal. Hyper terminal is a program through which one can transmit and receive data serially using personal computer(PC) serial ports. Standard PC has two serial ports, db-9 and db-25. To these serial ports we usually connect our printers, fax machines, mouse and joy sticks.
The block diagram of data transfer between 89c51 microcontroller UART port and personal computer is shown below.

8051 microcontroller serial data transfer between pc and 89c51 uart port

Max232 Level converter

8051 microcontroller works on TTL logic and personal computers works on rs232 logic. In order to communicate between the two modules data must be on the same carrier logic. Hence a level shiftier like max232 is used. Which transforms data from one logic to another before sending it to the receiver. In order to learn more about max232 transceiver, its pin out, working and power requirements please take the below tutorial.

Max232 Pin out and Working

8051(89c51,89c52) Microcontroller UART

89c51 microcontroller Uart is used to receive data from PC. You can also use any other 8051 series microcontroller like 89c52 microcontroller. But first be sure it has build in UART(universal asynchronous receiver transmitter)for serial communication.

Port-1 of our microcontroller is used as output Port. It is connected to data pins of 16×2 lcd.

Port-3 pin# 5 is connected to rs(regester select) pin of 16×2 lcd.
Port-3 pin# 6 is connected to en(enable) pin of 16×2 lcd.
Port-3 pin# 7 is connected to rw(read write) pin of 16×2 lcd.

If you dont know how to interface lcd with 8051(89c51,89c52) microcontroller here are some good tutorial, just go through them.

serial data receiverd from pc hyperterminal and displayed on lcd using 8051(89c51,89c52) microcontroller

Project Code

In the main function i first called the lcdinit() function to initialize the 16×2 lcd. All the commands used in the function are deeply discussed in the above tutorials. Then timer mode is set. TMOD=0x02 means Timer1, Mode2 (8 bit auto reload) is selected. TH1=0xFD is actually timer one high byte, giving 0xFD hexadecimal value to TH1 means setting communication baud rate between 8051 microcontroller and PC to 9600 bps(bits per second). SCON=0x50 is actually setting our serial data bits format Total=8 Data bit with 1 start bit and 1 stop bit. TR1=1 means run timer one. This whole phenomena with full meaning of the statements (SCON,TMOD,TH) is discussed in the below two tutorials. How to calculate baud rate values are also discussed.

while(RI==0) is checking RI(receive interrupt) flag continuously. This flag automatically becomes one when 8051(89c51,89c52) receives any data on its RXD pin(P3^0). when RI becomes 1 it means we have one byte of data in our SBUF(serial buffer) register. So in next statement i picked the Byte from SBUF register and save it in character variable data. Then i made the RI flag low again to receive next byte. The Byte which i saved in data variable is now send to display function to be displayed on the 16×2 lcd.

Download the project files and Code(Hex,c++) compiled using keil uvision 4 compiler. If you feel any problem in the code or don’t understand any statement of the code just write your queries below. The code is Tested using Hardware and its free of any bug. << />iv>

Serial data Received from PC