Any writes to these registers when the SPI is enabled or is being enabled (CTRL.ENABLE is one) will be discarded.
Writes to these registers while the SPI is being disabled will be completed after the disabling is complete.

Enable-protection is denoted by the Enable-Protection property in the register description.

Before the SPI is enabled, it must be configured, as outlined by the following steps:

SPI mode in master or slave operation must be selected by writing 0x2 or 0x3 to the Operating Mode bit group in
the Control A register (CTRLA.MODE)

Transfer mode must be selected by writing the Clock Polarity bit and the Clock Phase bit in the Control A register
(CTRLA.CPOL and CTRLA.CPHA)

Transaction format must be selected by writing the Frame Format bit group in the Control A register
(CTRLA.FORM)

SERCOM pad to use for the receiver must be selected by writing the Data In Pinout bit in the Control A register
(CTRLA.DIPO)

SERCOM pads to use for the transmitter, slave select and serial clock must be selected by writing the Data Out
Pinout bit group in the Control A register (CTRLA.DOPO)

Character size must be selected by writing the Character Size bit in the Control B register (CTRLB.CHSIZE)

Data direction must be selected by writing the Data Order bit in the Control A register (CTRLA.DORD)

If the SPI is used in master mode, the Baud register (BAUD) must be written to generate the desired baud rate

The receiver can be enabled by writing a one to the Receiver Enable bit in the Control B register (CTRLB.RXEN)

25.6.2.2 Enabling, Disabling and Resetting

The SPI is enabled by writing a one to the Enable bit in the Control A register (CTRLA.ENABLE). The SPI is disabled by
writing a zero to CTRLA.ENABLE.

The SPI is reset by writing a one to the Software Reset bit in the Control A register (CTRLA.SWRST). All registers in the
SPI, except DBGCTRL, will be reset to their initial state, and the SPI will be disabled. Refer to CTRLA for details.

25.6.2.3 Clock Generation

In SPI master operation (CTRLA.MODE is 0x3), the serial clock (SCK) is generated internally using the SERCOM baud-
rate generator. When used in SPI mode, the baud-rate generator is set to synchronous mode, and the 8-bit Baud register
(BAUD) value is used to generate SCK, clocking the shift register. Refer to

“Clock Generation – Baud-Rate Generator”

on page 332

for more details.

In SPI slave operation (CTRLA.MODE is 0x2), the clock is provided by an external master on the SCK pin. This clock is
used to directly clock the SPI shift register.

25.6.2.4 Data Register

The SPI Transmit Data register (TxDATA) and SPI Receive Data register (RxDATA) share the same I/O address,
referred to as the SPI Data register (DATA). Writing the DATA register will update the Transmit Data register. Reading
the DATA register will return the contents of the Receive Data register.

25.6.2.5 SPI Transfer Modes

There are four combinations of SCK phase and polarity with respect to the serial data. The SPI data transfer modes are
shown in

Table 25-2

and

Figure 25-3

. SCK phase is selected by the Clock Phase bit in the Control A register