TRANSCEIVERS
Learn RS-485 design basics
By Thomas Kugelstadt
Senior Applications Engineer
Texas Instruments Inc.
Ratified in the early 1980s as
a new balanced transmission
standard, RS-485 has emerged as
the industry’s seemingly eternal
interface workhorse. Since then,
much literature has been written
on the subject, overwhelming
system engineers who are rarely
confronted with interface design.
This article serves as an introduc-
tory guide to designers new to
RS-485 by discussing the main
aspects of the standard.
RS-485 only defines the elec-
trical characteristics of drivers
and receivers used in balanced
multipoint transmission lines. As
an electrical-only standard, RS-
485 is commonly referenced by
higher level standards as their
physical layer.
Network topology
Bus nodes are networked in a dai-
sy-chain or bus topology (Figure
1). That is, each node connects
to the main cable trunk via short
stubs. The interface bus is usually
designed for half-duplex trans-
mission, meaning that only one
signal pair is used, across which
the driving and receiving of data
must occur at different times.
This implementation requires
the protocol-controlled op-
eration of all nodes via direction
control signals (i.e. driver/receiver
enabled signals) to ensure that
only one driver is active on the
bus at any time. Having more
than one driver accessing the bus
simultaneously leads to bus con-
tention, which must be avoided
at all times.
RS-485 drivers must provide a
differential output of a minimum
of 1.5V across a 54Ω load, while
RS-485 receivers must detect a
differential input with a minimum
of 200mV (Figure 2). These two
values provide sufficient margin
for reliable data transmission,
even under severe signal degra-
dation across the cable and con-
nectors. This robustness is the
primary reason RS-485 is good
for long distance networking in
noisy environments.
Cable type
RS-485 applications benefit from
differential signaling over twisted Figure 1: Bus nodes are networked in a daisy-chain (a) or bus topology (b).
pair cable. This is because noise
from external sources couples
equally into both signal lines as
common-mode noise, which is
rejected by the differential re-
ceiver input. Figure 2: RS-485 drivers must provide a differential output of a minimum of
Industrial RS-485 cables are of 1.5V across a 54Ω load, while RS-485 receivers must detect a differential input
the sheathed, unshielded, twist- with a minimum of 200mV.
ed pair type with a characteristic
impedance of 120Ω and 22 AWG.
Figure 3 shows the cross sec-
tion of a cable for half-duplex
networks.
Beyond network cabling, it is
mandatory that the PCB layouts
and the connector pin assign- Figure 3: Shown is the cross section of a single pair unshielded, twisted pair
ments of RS-485 equipment type cable for half-duplex networks.
keep both signal lines close and
equidistant to one another to
maintain the network’s electrical
characteristics.
Bus termination, stub length
Data transmission lines should
always be terminated, and stubs
should be as short as possible to
avoid signal reflections on the
line. Proper termination requires
matching the terminating resis-
tors (RT) to the characteristic im- Figure 4: Applications in noisy environments often add common-mode noise
pedance (Z0) of the transmission filtering by replacing the 120Ω resistors with two resistor capacitor low-pass
cable. Because RS-485 recom- filters.
mends cables with Z0 = 120Ω,
the cable trunk is commonly ter- differ and common-mode noise (ns); v = signal velocity of the
minated with 120Ω resistors, one to be converted into differential cable as factor of c; c = speed of
at each cable end (Figure 1b). noise, thus compromising the light (9.8 x108ft/s).
Applications in noisy en- receiver’s noise immunity. The table lists the maximum
vironments often add com- The electrical length of a stub stub lengths of the cable in Figure
mon-mode noise filtering by (the distance between a transceiver 4 for various driver rise times.
replacing the 120Ω resistors and cable trunk) should be shorter
with two resistor capacitor than one-tenth of the driver’s out- Loss of signal
low-pass filters (Figure 4). It is put rise time and is given by Fail-safe operation is a receiver’s
important to match the resistor ability to assume a determined
values (preferably with precision output state in the absence of an
resistors) to ensure equal roll- input signal. There are three pos-
off frequencies of both filters. where: LStub = maximum sible causes that can lead to the
Larger resistor tolerances cause length of an unterminated cable loss of signal: open-circuit caused
the filter corner frequencies to (ft); tr = driver (10/90) rise time by a wire break or by disconnect-
EE Times-Asia | August 1-15, 2008 | eetasia.com 
ing a transceiver from the bus;
short-circuit caused by an insula-
tion fault connecting the wires of
a differential pair to another; and
idle-bus occurring when none of
the bus drivers is active.
Because these conditions can
cause conventional receivers to
assume random output states
when the input signal is 0, mod-
ern transceiver designs include
biasing circuits for open-circuit,
short-circuit and idle-bus fail-safe,
which drive the receiver output
to a determined state when the
input signal is 0.
While these fail-safe transceiv-
ers claim to reduce component
count, their worst-case noise
margin of 10mV necessitates
the design of external fail-safe
circuitry. An external fail-safe cir-
cuit consists of a resistive voltage
divider that generates sufficient
differential bus voltage to drive
the receiver output into a deter-
mined state. To ensure sufficient
noise margin, VAB must include
the maximum differential noise
in addition to the 200mV receiver
input threshold. The values for
the fail-safe bias resistors (RB) are
then calculated for worst-case
conditions—maximum noise at
minimum supply, that is:
With VAB = 200mV + VNoise.
For a minimum bus voltage of
4.75V, VAB = 0.25V and Z0 = 120,
RB yields 528Ω. Inserting two 523
resistors in series to RT (Figure 5)
establishes a single fail-safe circuit
at one bus end.
Because a driver’s output
depends on the current, it must
supply into a load. Adding trans-
ceivers and fail-safe circuits to
the bus increases the total load
current required. To estimate
the maximum number of bus
loads possible, RS-485 specifies a
hypothetical term of a unit load
(UL), which represents a load im-
pedance of approximately 12kΩ.
Standard compliant drivers must
be able to drive 32 of these ULs.
Today’s transceivers often pro-
vide reduced unit loading, such
 eetasia.com | August 1-15, 2008 | EE Times-Asia
as one-eighth UL, thus allowing
the connection of up to 256
transceivers on the bus.
Because fail-safe biasing
contributes up to 20 ULs of bus
loading, the maximum number
of transceivers, N, is reduced to:
Thus, when using 1/8 transceiv-
ers, a maximum of 96 devices can Figure 5: Inserting two 523Ω resistors in series to RT establishes a single fail-safe
be connected to the bus. circuit at one bus end.
Data rate vs. bus length
Maximum bus length is limited by
transmission line losses and signal
jitter at a given data rate. Because
data reliability sharply decreases
for a jitter of 10 percent or more of
the baud period, Figure 6 shows
the cable length vs. data rate char-
acteristic of a conventional RS-485
driver for a 10 percent signal jitter.
In Figure 6, Section 1 repre-
sents the range of low data rates
where the line length is limited
by the predominantly non-reac-
tive (resistive) losses of the cable.
In Section 2, the cable’s reactive
losses increase with frequency, Figure 6: At short lengths, the cable losses are discarded and only the driver rise
thus making a reduction in cable time limits the maximum data rate possible.
length necessary. A rule of thumb
states that the product of the line
length (feet) and the data rate (bit/
s) is less than 3,107. At short lengths,
the cable losses are discarded and
only the driver rise time limits the
maximum data rate possible. (as
shown in Section 3).
Minimum node spacing
Adding bus capacitance in the
form of devices and their intercon-
nections lowers the bus imped-
ance. It also causes impedance
mismatches between the media Figure 7: Minimum node spacing with device and media capacitance is shown.
and the loaded section of the
bus. Input signals arriving at these where CL is the lumped load tacts, PCB traces, protection
mismatches are partially reflected capacitance; and C, the media devices and any other physical
back to the signal source, distort- capacitance (cable or PCB trace) connections to the trunk line,
ing the driver output signal. per unit length. While this equa- as long as the distance from the
Ensuring a valid receiver input tion presents the relationship for bus to the transceiver (the stub)
voltage level during the first signal the minimum device spacing is electrically short.
transition from an output driver as a function of the distributed
anywhere on the bus requires a media and lumped-load capaci- Galvanic isolation
minimum distance between bus tance, Figure 7 shows this rela- Remote data links often possess
nodes, approximated through tionship graphically. large ground potential differences
Load capacitance includes which add to the transmitter out-
contributions from the line put as common-mode noise. If
circuit bus pins, connector con- large enough, these voltages can
Figure 8: The design pitfalls to be aware off are (a) high ground potential differences; (b) high loop current; and (c) reduced loop current, yet highly sensitive to
induced noise due to large ground loop.
Device Signal rate
(kbit/s)
SN65HVD12 1000
SN65LBC184 250
SN65HVD3082E 200
The electrical length of a stub (the distance between a transceiver and cable
trunk) should be shorter than one-tenth of the driver’s output rise time.
exceed the receiver’s input com-
mon-mode range and damage
the component. Thus, relying on
the local earth ground as a reliable
path for the return current is not
advised (Figure 8a).
Connecting remote grounds
directly by ground wire is also not
recommended (Figure 8b), as this
might cause large ground-loop
currents to flow, which again will
couple into the data lines as com-
mon-mode noise.
Reducing loop currents by
inserting resistors in the ground
path, as suggested by RS-485,
is only half the battle won. The
existence of a large ground loop
keeps the data link sensitive to
noise generated somewhere else
along the loop. Thus, a robust data
link has not yet been established
(Figure 8c).
The most reliable approach to
a robust, long distance data link is
via galvanic isolation. In this case,
the signal and supply lines of a
bus transceiver are isolated from
its local signal and supply sources.
Supply isolators (i.e. isolated DC/
DC converters) and signal isolators
(i.e. digital, capacitive isolators)
prevent current flow between
remote system grounds and avoid
the creation of current loops.
Rise time Maximum stub
tr [ns] length [ft]
100 7
250 19
500 38
Figure 9 shows the detailed
connection of multiple isolated
transceivers. All but one trans-
ceiver connects to the bus via
isolation. The non-isolated trans-
ceiver on the left provides the
single-ground reference for the
entire bus.
Without claiming to be com-
plete, this article aims to cover
the main aspects of an RS-485
system design. Despite the enor-
mous amount of technical litera-
ture on the subject, it intends to
provide system designers new to
RS-485 with design guidelines in
a very comprehensive way.
An extensive product range
of RS-485 transceivers is avail-
able from TI. Device features in-
clude low EMI, low power, high
ESD protection (16-30kV) and
integrated fail-safe functions
for open-, short- and idle-bus
conditions. For long distance
applications requiring isolation,
the product range extends to
unidirectional and bidirectional,
digital isolators in dual, triple
and quad versions (from DC to
150Mbit/s), and isolated DC/DC
converters (with 3V and 5V regu-
lated outputs) to provide the Figure 9: All but one transceiver connects to the bus via isolation. The non-
power supply across the isola- isolated transceiver on the left provides the single-ground reference for the
tion barrier. entire bus.
EE Times-Asia | August 1-15, 2008 | eetasia.com