Simplifying Crossbar and Peripheral Pin-Out Configuration for 32-Bit ARM-Based Microcontrollers

PublishTime：2022-05-17

●The process of evaluating 32-bit microcontroller options for a new embedded design can be tedious and time-consuming. During the evaluation process, embedded developers often must learn how to configure and use each new MCU’s general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins and peripherals.As 32-bit MCUs become more complex, the degree of configurability for each GPIO pin and peripheral increases significantly. A highly configurable GPIO and peripheral set should give developers additional design flexibility instead of adding design hurdles.
●Having access to an easy-to-use configuration interface paired with software tools that graphically configure a device’s pin-out and peripherals enables embedded developers to quickly determine an application’s pin-out options and generate initialization code. Let’s take a closer look at how a microcontroller configuration utility with an intelligent graphical user interface (GUI)can ease the application development process and ultimately accelerate time-to-market.
●Once an application’s design specification is complete, the developer can assess potential MCUs to use in the design. Given that ARM has become a de facto standard for 32-bit MCUs, many new MCU options now incorporate ARM Cortex CPUs. Although an MCU may meet the developer’s specifications in terms of code space, RAM, peripherals and analog functionality, the microcontroller must also be capable of physically pinning out all needed functions. If every peripheral or function was available on every port pin without any limitations, the developer would need to review only the specifications. In most cases, however, the MCU’s peripherals are multiplexed on various port pins, and it is the developer’s responsibility to determine if the microcontroller can be configured in away that meets the design requirements.
●Ideally, developers will select a microcontroller with highly configurable port pins, enabling them to choose smaller, less expensive devices for their application needs. Additional configuration flexibility also makes it easy for developers to make last-minute changes to a design. One of the latest additions to the ARM Cortex-based MCU market –the Precision32™ MCU family from Silicon Laboratories–offers an easy-to-configure dual-crossbar architecture that provides developers with this pin-out flexibility.The dual-crossbar architecture allows the developer to assign a mix of digital and analog functions to GPIO pins.
●As developers begin to evaluate potential 32-bit candidates for their embedded applications, they must learn how to configure and use various microcontroller products and associated tool chains. This is often a time-consuming task. Providing developers with an easy-to-use graphical configuration tool that allows them to determine a device’s available pin-outs and quickly generate initialization code will significantly reduce the total development time. For example, to help embedded designers accelerate development with Precision32 MCUs, Silicon Labs offers a GUI-basedAppBuilder software tool that enables developers to easily configure port pins and peripherals while providing a snapshot of where the pin functionality will appear on the MCU package and which peripherals are configured for use. The following figure shows a sample printout generated by the AppBuilder tool.

Brand of Product：	Silicon Labs
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Product Category：	32-Bit ARM-Based Microcontrollers More
Application：	More
Data Type：	Technical Documentation More
Safety & Environment Standards：	More
Operating Temperature：	Please see the document for details
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Language：	English Chinese Chinese and English Japanese
Date of Creation：	2017/07/27
Version Number：	Rev 1.0
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Data Size：	366 KB

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