Understanding Direct Memory Access (DMA)

DMA is a feature that can significantly elevate the performance of your embedded systems. If you’ve been dealing with data transfers in your microcontroller projects, you know how taxing it can be on the CPU to handle all that data movement. This is where DMA steps in as a game-changer, offloading the data transfer tasks from the CPU and allowing it to focus on more critical functions. Let’s see how it works.

How DMA works

So, what exactly is DMA, and how does it work? In simple terms, DMA is a method that allows peripherals within a microcontroller to transfer data directly to and from memory, without requiring continuous CPU intervention. Imagine it as a dedicated assistant that takes over the tedious task of moving boxes (data) so that you (the CPU) can focus on more important work, such as solving complex problems or managing other peripherals.

A typical DMA controller in a microcontroller has multiple channels, each...