I am trying to use the FT232R chip in order to allow for Serial communication between a board based on the ATMEL SAMD21 chip and a PC. I need this in order to obtain input from the user, and display some sensor output to the terminal to alert the user.
In the FT232R datasheet, it connects RTS and CTS of the FT232R to RTS and CTS of the microcontroller for it's UART example, but there are contradicting opinions about whether RTS and CTS are essential for proper communication. How do I know if RTS and CTS are used in this case, and whether my application would function properly without them?
Thanks
Best Answer
This is unanswerable based on the hardware alone.
Rather it depends on the software on each end. If the software expects (or configures operating system serial drivers or buffered UART modes to expect) the use of hardware flow control, then you must either connect these or wire them into a permissive state.
If the software doesn't try to use them (or configure for their use), then it doesn't matter if you connect them.
(In rare legacy cases, the "software" in question could be a state machine implemented in a more hardware-like fashion, but apart from UART-level buffer management this is extremely unusual - and regardless, the concept is the same, that it is the usage of the port that possibly cares about hardware flow control, not the low level of the port itself).