Can I set arbitrary SPI clock speeds?

Question

I would like to interface an ADC (in particular this one: http://www.linear.com/product/LTC1400) with an Arduino Nano via SPI. The specified max clock speed for the ADC is 6.4 MHz. The Nano can do up to 8 MHz clock speed, but I'm not able to set 6.4 MHz. If I try this

SPI.beginTransaction(SPISettings(6400000, MSBFIRST, SPI_MODE0));

I get 4 MHz at the clock pin, which means the achievable acquisition rate of the ADC is reduced. Is there a way to get the 6.4 MHz going for maximum acquisition rate with the ADC? Or is there a different approach to get fast data transfer with the ADC (e.g. external clock)?

Answer 1

You are limited to what your microcontroller supports. You could use a 12MHz oscillator to clock your Arduino and set the SCK divider to fOSC/2 = 6MHz (even if it was possible, I wouldn't go higher. Having some margin just to be on the safe side is generally a good advice).
Drawback of this solution is that you lose CPU performance. Please consider also that just collecting ADC data is not enough. You also have to do something with it. Therefore the question should rather be:
"What minimum ADC acquisition rate do I need for my application?"

Answer 2

No, you cannot set 6.4MHz on SPI with a default hardware arrangement.

On the ATMega series of chips the SPI clock is generated by dividing the system clock (8 or 16MHz depending on if you have a 3.3 or 5V board) by one of: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128.

Looking at the datasheet (section 25) it may be possible to configure the USART to run in SPI mode which allows a flexible clock speed, though this is not supported by the Arduino API.

• Julian F. Weinert: Just to be complete, the ATMegas can be clocked up to 20MHz
• Majenko: Yes, but the Ardiuno boards never are (or not that I have seen).
• Julian F. Weinert: Yeah, thats right