The USART receiver has three error bits in the Status (STATUS) register: Frame Error (FERR), Buffer Overflow (BUFOVF), and Parity Error (PERR). Once an error happens, the corresponding error bit will be set until it is cleared by writing ‘1’ to it. These bits are also cleared automatically when the receiver is disabled.
There are two methods for buffer overflow notification, selected by the Immediate Buffer Overflow Notification bit in the Control A register (CTRLA.IBON):
When CTRLA.IBON=1, STATUS.BUFOVF is raised immediately upon buffer overflow. Software can then empty the receive FIFO by reading RxDATA, until the receiver complete interrupt flag (INTFLAG.RXC) is cleared.
When CTRLA.IBON=0, the buffer overflow condition is attending data through the receive FIFO. After the received data is read, STATUS.BUFOVF will be set along with INTFLAG.RXC.