The Parity Checker is active when the high USART Parity Mode bit 1 in the USART Control and Status Register n C (UCSRnC.UPM[1]) is written to '1'. The type of Parity Check to be performed (odd or even) is selected by the UCSRnC.UPM[0] bit. When enabled, the Parity Checker calculates the parity of the data bits in incoming frames and compares the result with the parity bit from the serial frame. The result of the check is stored in the receive buffer together with the received data and stop bits. The USART Parity Error Flag in the USART Control and Status Register n A (UCSRnA.UPE) can then be read by software to check if the frame had a Parity Error.
The UPEn bit is set if the next character that can be read from the receive buffer had a Parity Error when received and the Parity Checking was enabled at that point (UPM[1] = 1). This bit is valid until the receive buffer (UDRn) is read.