How to use multiple SPI slaves in MKR1000 if it doesn't have Slave Select (SS/CS) pin?

Question

I'm using a Genuino MKR1000 and I want to use the SPI interface, which I've seen that there is no Slave Select (SS)/Chip Select(CS) pin usage.

How can I use the SPI interface with multiple slaves then?

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• Majenko: What doesn't have a slave select pin?
• waas1919: I don't know... (question edited to see that there is no SS/CS pin)
• Majenko: Question: how do you use SPI with just one slave...?
• Majenko: @waas1919 Yes, the Arduino doesn't care what pin you use for SS since you just use digitalWrite() on it anyway. You use any pin you like for one slave, so you can use any other pin you like for another slave.
• Gerben: Some libraries require a specific pin, but on most you can specify your own.

Answer 1

The Arduino doesn't care what pin you use for SS since you just use digitalWrite() on it anyway. You use any pin you like for one slave, so you can use any other pin you like for another slave.

The ATMega-based boards need pin 10 to be set as an output for SPI to function, but you don't then have to use that for the actual slave select. The only time it becomes a real slave-select pin is when using the Arduino itself as a slave.

• Chillar Anand: How does SPI.transfer knows where to send data?
• Majenko: It sends it out through the SPI port.
• Chillar Anand: If a slave is connected to pin 3, we can set it to low and transfer data. But what if other pins say 4, 5 are also low. Now how does spi knows which is slave select?
• Majenko: Slave select is the pin that is low that is connected to the chip select pin of a slave. SPI neither knows nor cares what it is. If the slave's chip select pin is low then the slave is listening to the bus.

Answer 2

If the number of slaves is large, consider using a multiplexed arrangement for select lines. As an example, the 16-pin 74LS138 Decoder/Demultiplexer pulls one of eight lines low depending on the state of its three address lines, while the 24-pin 74LS154 pulls one of sixteen lines low depending on the state of its four address lines. Both of these chips have two or three enable lines, allowing use of two to four of them together to multiply the number of output lines by two to four via use of one or two more address lines.