Introduction

The Local Interconnect Network (LIN) is a serial network protocol developed for communication between automotive components. It was developed to be a simple, inexpensive serial alternative for smaller components that don’t need to be connected to the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus of the vehicle. Microchip’s Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) module includes added protocol support features that both simplify and allow for several aspects of the LIN protocol to be performed in hardware. This technical brief will give a short summary of the LIN protocol and explain how to use the UART module for a basic LIN transaction.