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P RECISION 32™ P ORT I / O C ROSSBAR D ECODER
1. Introduction
Precision32™ devices use one or more Port I/O Crossbar Decoders to assign internal digital signals to Port I/O
pins. A crossbar decoder provides the system designer with flexibility to customize the pinout according to the
needs of the application. The Port I/O Crossbar Decoder is particularly useful in low pin count devices where the
number of internal digital signals outnumber the available I/O pins.
The crossbars are fully supported by the Silicon Labs Precision32 SDK, including Hardware Access Layer (HAL)
routines and code examples showing how to configure a crossbar for a particular peripheral. Additionally, the
Precision32 AppBuilder application provides a graphical interface to easily configure pins in a crossbar.
VDD
VIO
PB0.0
PB0.1
PB0.2
PB0.3
PB0.4
PB0.5
PB0.6
PB0.7
PB0.8
PB0.9
PB0.10
PB0.11
75
74
73
71
70
69
68
67
65
64
63
62
61
66
VSS
76
72
VBUS
VREGIN
77
DD+
79
78
RESET
80
Figure 1 shows an example of how internal signals are routed to the Port Banks of SiM3U1xx devices through the
use of two crossbar decoders. Port Bank 0 (PB0) and Port Bank 1 (PB1) are connected to crossbar 0, and
Port Bank 2 (PB2) and Port Bank 3 (PB3) are connected to crossbar 1.
PB4.5
PB4.4
1
60
PB0.12
2
59
PB0.13
58
PB0.14
57
PB0.15
56
PB1.0
55
PB1.1
54
PB1.2/TRST
53
PB1.3/TDO/SWV
52
PB1.4/TDI
51
PB1.5/ETM0
50
PB1.6/ETM1
VIO
PB4.3
3
VSSHD
4
VIOHD
5
PB4.2
PB4.1
6
PB4.0
8
PB3.11
9
PB3.10
10
PB3.9
PB3.8
11
12
49
PB3.7
13
48
PB1.7/ETM2
PB3.6
14
47
PB1.8/ETM3
PB3.5
15
PB3.4
PB3.3
16
PB3.2
PB4
Independent of
the crossbars
Crossbar 0
(PB0 and PB1)
7
SiM3U167
80-Pin TQFP
Crossbar 1
(PB2 and PB3)
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
PB2.7
PB2.6
PB2.5
PB2.4
VIO
VSS
PB2.3
PB2.2
PB2.1
PB2.0
PB1.15
PB1.14
PB1.13
PB1.12
26
41
PB2.8
20
PB2.9
PB1.11
PB3.0
25
42
24
19
PB2.10
PB1.10
PB3.1
PB2.11
SWDIO/TMS
43
23
44
18
22
17
21
SWCLK/TCK
PB2.13
PB2.12
PB1.9/TRACECLK
45
PB2.14
46
Figure 1. Crossbar Example on a SiM3U167 Device
2. Relevant Documentation
Precision32 Application Notes are listed on the following website: www.silabs.com/32bit-mcu.
AN664:
AN670:
Rev. 0.1 2/12
Precision32™ CMSIS and HAL User’s Guide
Getting Started with the Silicon Labs Precision32™ AppBuilder
Copyright © 2012 by Silicon Laboratories
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3. Crossbar Function
The primary function of a crossbar decoder is to route internal digital signals to Port Bank pins. Figure 2 is a block
diagram of crossbar 0 on SiM3U1xx devices. The inputs to the crossbar are a number of internal digital signals
inside the device. The XBAR0H, XBAR0L, and PBSKIP registers in the port configuration module (PBCFG) define
how the internal digital signals are mapped to the I/O pins of PB0 and PB1.
Crossbar 0
Highest
Priority
RX/TX
USART0
Flow Control
Clock
SCK/MISO/MOSI
PB0.0
SPI0
NSS
16
RX/TX
USART1
Port
I/O
Cells
Digital
Crossbar 0
Flow Control
PB0.15
Clock
PB1.0
EPCA0
“N” Channels
PCA0
“N” Channels
PCA1
“N” Channels
EPCA0
ECI
16
Port
I/O
Cells
PB1.15
Not all Port I/O pins are
available on all packages.
Priority
Decoder
PCA0
ECI
PCA1
ECI
I2S0
TX
XBAR0L
I2C0
SDA/SCL
PBSKIP
XBAR0H
CMP0S
CMP0
CMP0A
CMP1S
Port Match
CMP1A
PM
CMP1
PMMSK
T0CT
TIMER0
T0EX
T1CT
TIMER1
T1EX
RX/TX
UART0
Flow Control
UART1
RX/TX
SCK/MISO/MOSI
SPI1
NSS
SCK/MISO/MOSI
SPI2
NSS
Lowest
Priority
AHB
Clock
Output (
16)
Figure 2. Example Routing of Internal Digital Signals to Port Banks on SiM3U1xx Devices
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3.1. Crossbar Functionality on Reset
After a device reset, all crossbars enter a disabled default reset state. Port Bank pins connected to a disabled
crossbar are forced into a high impedance digital input mode. Firmware must enable the crossbar associated with
a specific Port Bank pin in order to use that pin as an output. In most applications, firmware will enable all
crossbars on the device to control all the available I/O pins on the device.
When a crossbar is enabled with no internal signals selected to be routed to I/O pins, the crossbar provides full
general purpose input/output (GPIO) access to the Port Banks associated with it. Pins with full GPIO access can
be used as digital inputs, digital outputs, or may be used by various analog functions on the device. As internal
signals are selected to be routed to I/O pins (or “enabled in the crossbar”), the crossbar claims pins from the
associated port banks. Pins claimed by the crossbar cannot be used as GPIO and are under the full control of the
crossbar and the associated peripheral.
3.2. Skipping Pins in the Crossbar
The crossbars have a pin-skipping feature for pins that must be reserved GPIO or analog functions. Any Port Bank
pin with its corresponding PBSKIPEN bit set to 1 cannot be claimed by the crossbar and will remain available for
GPIO or analog functions. The ability to have the crossbar skip certain pins is useful when a system designer is
trying to achieve a specific pinout for the device.
3.3. Crossbar Priority Order
As internal signals are enabled in a crossbar, the crossbar claims pins from the Port Banks to connect to the
internal signal, starting with the least significant Port Bank pin and finishing with the most significant Port Bank pin.
As an example, crossbar 0 of SiM3U1xx devices would start with PB0.0, then PB0.1, and continue in this fashion
until reaching PB1.15. If the crossbar encounters a pin that has its PBSKIPEN bit set to 1, it skips over the pin and
claims the next available pin. Any pin not claimed by the crossbar can be used for GPIO or analog functions.
The crossbar uses a priority order to assign enabled internal signals to claimed Port Bank pins. This priority order
varies with the specific crossbar implementation. Figure 3 shows an example priority order from crossbar 0 of
SiM3U1xx devices. In this example, there are four enabled peripherals that require pin assignment: SPI0, EPCA0,
UART0, and UART1. From the enabled peripherals, SPI0 has the highest priority, so it will be assigned to the first
three pins claimed by the crossbar. Note that in this example configuration, firmware configured the first 8 pins of
PB0 (PB0.0 - PB0.7) to be skipped by the crossbar; the crossbar will assign the SPI0 pins to PB0.8, PB0.9, and
PB0.10. Following the priority order, the EPCA0 pins are assigned to PB0.11, PB0.12, PB0.15, PB1.0. The PB1.2.
PB0.13 and PB0.14 pins are not assigned to EPCA0 because they are configured to be skipped by the crossbar.
UART0 and UART1 are assigned to the next four available pins: PB1.3, PB1.4, PB.15, and PB1.6. The remaining
pins (PB1.7–PB1.15) are not claimed by the crossbar.
3.4. Creating a Flexible Device Pinout
The definition of a system can sometimes change in the middle of the design cycle, necessitating a pinout change.
Planning ahead for such changes in pinout can save costly PCB revisions and decrease time to market when a
system definition change does occur. In the example pinout shown in Figure 3, SPI0 is used in 3-wire mode. If the
communication protocol was changed from 3-wire to 4-wire mode, then PB0.11 would be used for the NSS signal,
causing all peripherals of lower priority order to shift by one pin. Using the crossbar’s skip functionality, the system
designer can plan ahead for such a change by skipping PB0.11 when the specification calls for 3-wire SPI mode.
The skipped pin can later be un-skipped if the specification later requires the use of 4-wire SPI without affecting the
location of peripherals with a lower priority order. If the specification does not change, the skipped pin can be used
for GPIO (e.g., to control an LED or as a debug signal). Adding a few skipped pins when determining the original
device pinout can allow future functionality to be added with minimal impact on the device pinout.
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P0
Peripheral
Signal Name
USART0
USART0_TX
P1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12
13 14 15
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12
13 14 15
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
USART0_RX
USART0_RTS
USART0_CTS
USART0_UCLK
SPI0
SPI0_SCK
SPI0_MISO
SPI0_MOSI
SPI0_NSS
USART1
USART1_TX
USART1_RX
USART1_RTS
USART1_CTS
USART1_UCLK
EPCA0
EPCA0_CEX0
EPCA0_CEX1
EPCA0_CEX2
EPCA0_CEX3
EPCA0_CEX4
EPCA0_CEX5
PCA0
PCA0_CEX0
PCA0_CEX1
PCA1
PCA1_CEX0
PCA1_CEX1
EPCA0 ECI
EPCA0_ECI
PCA0 ECI
PCA0_ECI
PCA1 ECI
PCA1_ECI
I2S0 TX
I2S0_TX_WS
I2S0_TX_SCK
I2S0_TX_SD
I2C0
I2C0_SDA
I2C0_SCL
CMP0
CMP0S
CMP0A
CMP1
CMP1S
CMP1A
TIMER0
TIMER0_CT
TIMER0_EX
TIMER1
TIMER1_CT
TIMER1_EX
UART0
UART0_TX
UART0_RX
UART0_RTS
UART0_CTS
UART1
UART1_TX
UART1_RX
SPI1
SPI1_SCK
SPI1_MISO
SPI1_MOSI
SPI1_NSS
SPI2
SPI2_SCK
SPI2_MISO
SPI2_MOSI
SPI2_NSS
AHB Clock / 16
AHB_OUT
PBSKIPEN
0
0
1
0
0
Figure 3. Example Crossbar Priority Order on SiM3U1xx Devices (Crossbar 0)
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0
0
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4. Configuring the Crossbar and Port I/O in Firmware
The Precision32 AppBuilder application provides a graphical interface to easily configure pins in the crossbars.
This software uses the Hardware Access Layer (HAL), a part of the Silicon Labs SDK package that enables rapid
development on SiM3xxxx devices. The crossbars and Port Banks on SiM3xxxx devices are part of the PBCFG
and PBSTD modules.
The following steps show an example of how to initialize the crossbars and pins on SiM3U1xx devices to achieve
the pinout shown in Figure 3 using the Silicon Labs HAL:
1. Enable the APB clock to the I/O modules:
2. Configure pins to be skipped by the crossbars and enable signals in the crossbars. A full list of signal
names that may be enabled in the crossbars can be found in a file named SI32_PBCFG_A_Support.h.
3. Configure the functional and output mode of each pin:
4. Enable the crossbar or crossbars:
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CONTACT INFORMATION
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Austin, TX 78701
Tel: 1+(512) 416-8500
Fax: 1+(512) 416-9669
Toll Free: 1+(877) 444-3032
Please visit the Silicon Labs Technical Support web page:
https://www.silabs.com/support/pages/contacttechnicalsupport.aspx
and register to submit a technical support request.
The information in this document is believed to be accurate in all respects at the time of publication but is subject to change without notice.
Silicon Laboratories assumes no responsibility for errors and omissions, and disclaims responsibility for any consequences resulting from
the use of information included herein. Additionally, Silicon Laboratories assumes no responsibility for the functioning of undescribed features
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