Universal Serial Bus - Communication

Communication

During USB communication data is transmitted as packets. Initially, all packets are sent from the host, via the root hub and possibly more hubs, to devices. Some of those packets direct a device to send some packets in reply.

After the sync field, all packets are made of 8-bit bytes, transmitted least-significant bit first. The first byte is a packet identifier (PID) byte. The PID is actually 4 bits; the byte consists of the 4-bit PID followed by its bitwise complement. This redundancy helps detect errors. (Note also that a PID byte contains at most four consecutive 1 bits, and thus will never need bit-stuffing, even when combined with the final 1 bit in the sync byte. However, trailing 1 bits in the PID may require bit-stuffing within the first few bits of the payload.)

USB PID bytes
Type PID value
(msb-first)
Transmitted byte
(lsb-first)
Name Description
Reserved 0000 0000 1111
Token 1000 0001 1110 SPLIT High-bandwidth (USB 2.0) split transaction
0100 0010 1101 PING Check if endpoint can accept data (USB 2.0)
Special 1100 0011 1100 PRE Low-bandwidth USB preamble
Handshake ERR Split transaction error (USB 2.0)
0010 0100 1011 ACK Data packet accepted
1010 0101 1010 NAK Data packet not accepted; please retransmit
0110 0110 1001 NYET Data not ready yet (USB 2.0)
1110 0111 1000 STALL Transfer impossible; do error recovery
Token 0001 1000 0111 OUT Address for host-to-device transfer
1001 1001 0110 IN Address for device-to-host transfer
0101 1010 0101 SOF Start of frame marker (sent each ms)
1101 1011 0100 SETUP Address for host-to-device control transfer
Data 0011 1100 0011 DATA0 Even-numbered data packet
1011 1101 0010 DATA1 Odd-numbered data packet
0111 1110 0001 DATA2 Data packet for high-bandwidth isochronous transfer (USB 2.0)
1111 1111 0000 MDATA Data packet for high-bandwidth isochronous transfer (USB 2.0)

Packets come in three basic types, each with a different format and CRC (cyclic redundancy check):

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