What is UART?

Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) is a simple and popular way of serial communication. UART is used to convert data bytes on a parallel bus to serial bit stream which can be sent on a communication line. If this bit stream is given to another UART, it can convert back to the original data bytes. UART uses asynchronous communication, which means it follows all the asynchronous bus rules we learned in the previous section. It also uses optional error checking methods. It was actually a serial chip inside a PC motherboard or serial devices inside a modem, serial mouse, and so on. This IC implements a basic serial communications protocol that transmits and receives up to eight data bits at a time. Over time, UART logic has become widely adopted by embedded systems to give a user system log and console access. Even BeagleBone has serial pins near the P9 header to get system log and console access. Many microprocessors/microcontrollers and electronic devices have...