Hello, and welcome to this presentation of the STM32

management data input/output slave controller or MDIOS

controller module. It covers the main features of the
controller which is used to exchange management data
with a host device.

1
The MDIOS controller integrated inside STM32 products
provides a device management interface allowing a host
to manage the STM32 configuration. It offers 32 x 16-bit
wide registers. Applications benefit from a low pin count
standard interface to manage the device configuration.
The communication speed can go as high as 20 MHz.

2
The MDIOS controller provides all the functions specified
in IEEE RFC 802.3 chapter 22 needed to interface with a
host.
It consists of an “MDIOS Adapter" and an "Advanced
Peripheral Bus or APB interface".
The “MDIOS adapter” provides functions such as frame
decoding and checking, asynchronous wakeup and
interrupt generation while the “APB interface” manages
the control and status registers, data in registers and
data out registers and synchronous interrupt requests.
Two clocks are available for the MDIOS controller, the
APB clock (PCLK) for the “APB interface” and the
MDIOS_MDC bus clock for the “MDIOS adapter”.
Note that PCLK clock frequency shall be at least 1.5x times
higher than the MDC clock frequency. When the MDC bitrate
is 20MHz, the PCLK shall run at least at 30MHz.

3
The MDIO frame format is sent over the MDIO pin with
an active MDC clock. The clock may be stopped outside
the frame format.
The host sends MDIO data on the falling edge of the
MDC clock signal.

A preamble consisting of 32 bits with MDIO high is

clocked in prior to the frame start.
The frame start is encoded as 2-bit value (0b01)
(pronounced “zero” “one”- do not mention the “0b”).
The frame operation is selected by a 2-bit field: 0b01 for
a register write and 0b10 for a register read.
Then MDIO slave device address and register address
are sent. Up to 32 device registers can be addressed.
Subsequently for a write frame, the host sends a 2-bit
turn-around code (0b10) followed by the 16-bit register
data.

4
When the host issues read command, it changes the
MDIO direction to input in the first turn-around cycle and
the slave device drives the MDIO in the second cycle to
‘0’.
The slave outputs the data on the rising edge of the MDC
clock signal.
Following the second turn-around bit, the slave device
sends the register data and when finished, in the trailing
turn-around period, it changes the MDIO direction to input
again.

4
When enabled, the MDIOS monitors the MDIO interface for
an incoming preamble.
At least 32 bits on MDIO shall be received with value ‘1’ to
detect a valid preamble. This allows the slave device to
synchronize with the MDIO bus.
Once synchronized, the 32-bit preamble is required after any
received frame.
Only after the MDIOS is synchronized, the preamble errors
between received frames are reported by the PERF bit.

Once the MDIOS is synchronized with the MDIO interface,

the preamble check can be disabled by the DPC bit, allowing
the host to send frames without preamble.

5
A start condition is detected when a MDIO bit is set to ‘0’

Valid start conditions are 0b0101 for a write frame and

‘0b0110 for a read frame.
Start condition errors are reported by the SERF bit.

The Start condition will be processed by the MDIOS only

when a valid preamble has been detected or when preamble
detection has been disabled.

6
The physical address allows frames to be sent to different
devices on the same MDIO bus.
The MDIO device slave address is programmed in the
MDIOS PORT_ADDRESS register.

When a frame with a matching physical address is received,

it will be further processed by the device.
Frames with a different physical address are discarded.

The physical address will only be processed by the MDIOS

when a valid start condition has been detected.

7
The register address allows the host to access one of the 32
slave registers for write or read.

The register address will only be processed by the device

MDIOS when the frame’s physical address matches.

Note on STM32 devices where the MDIOS implements less

than 32 registers, if the host writes to a register which is not
implemented, data will be lost and on read, ‘0’ will be
returned.

8
When the host reads the data from slave:
• The turn-around field is used in read frames to hand over
the MDIO line from the host to the slave.
• The turn-around time is only 1 ½ cycle long, where ½ a
cycle is used by the host to switch its MDIO pin to input and
1 cycle by the slave to drive MDIO with ‘0’. There is no turn-
around error generated for read frames.

When host writes the data to slave:

• The host sends the 0b10 code instead. The turn-around

code errors are reported by the TERF bit.
• The turn-around field will only be processed by the MDIOS
device when the frame’s physical address matches.

9
MDIO data received from the host is written in the addressed
MDIOS register.
When enabled, the MDIOS generates an WRF(n) interrupt,
that’s also able to wake up the device from Stop mode.
The received data will only be processed by the MDIOS
device when the write frame turn-around code is valid.

MDIO data requested by the host will be read from the

addressed MDIOS register.
When enabled, the MDIOS will generate an RDF(n) interrupt
that is able to wake up the device from Stop mode.

10
The trailing turn-around field is only present in read frames
to hand over the MDIO line from the slave back to the host.

In detail, the trailing turn-around field is only ½ cycle long

and is used by the slave to switch its MDIO pin to Input
mode.

11
The MDIOS provides separate write and read registers.
The write registers are written by the MDIO host and read by
the slave device CPU via the APB bus.
The read registers are written by the slave device CPU via
APB and read by the MDIO host.

Each write and read register has an associated interrupt flag

WRF[31:0] and RDF[31:0] able to generate an interrupt and
wake up the slave device from Stop mode when the MDIO
host accesses the register.

For the DOUT[n] register to reflect the DIN[n] data, the

device CPU has to copy the data via the APB bus. The
WRF[31:0] flags may be used to detect write register update
by the MDIO host.
The device CPU has a time of (32-bit preamble + 4-bit start
condition + 5-bit physical address + 5-bit register address)
MDC clocks to copy the data before the MDIO host can read

12
the DOUT register again.

12
Here is an overview of the MDIOS interrupt events.
Register accesses by the MDIO host are signaled by bits
WRF[31:0] for write registers and bits RDF[31:0] for read
registers.
Frame transfer errors are signaled by PERF, SERF and
TERF interrupt events.
Here is an overview of the peripheral status at specific
low-power configuration modes. The device is not able to
perform any communication in Standby mode. It is
important to ensure that all transmissions are completed
before the MDIOS controller is disabled or the system is
switched down to Standby mode.
Here is an example of the MDIO interface used for
communication between the Station Management device
(STA) and MDIO Manageable devices (MMD).
Typically an MDIO bus is used between the Ethernet MAC
and the physical layer (PHY) in parallel with the physical
layer (PHY) bus and is used to detect cable
(dis)connection, speed of the Ethernet link, usage of
CSMA/CD or full-duplex links, auto-crossover, etc…

15
Here is a list of peripherals related to the MDIO interface.
Users should be familiar with all the relationships
between these peripherals to correctly configure and use
the MDIOS controller.

16