MCU-PLUS-SDK-AM243X: AM243x M4 Core SPI Configuration with Limited UART Pins and Internal Interrupt Routing

Petr Kucera

Tool/software:

Hello TI Community,

I am currently working with the AM243x LaunchPad and utilizing the M4 core, which has extended only 4 pins dedicated for UART. Given these constraints, I want to configure the SPI peripheral on the M4 core, and I have two potential approaches:

Software Emulation: The first approach is to emulate SPI communication through software, which could potentially alleviate the pin limitation issue.
MCSPI Peripheral Use: The second idea involves using the MCSPI peripheral available on the M4 core and setting up internal interrupts that connect with the UART pins using the MCSPI registers. My main questions regarding this approach are:
- Is this approach feasible?
- What steps are involved in setting up internal interrupts to route to the UART pins via MCSPI registers?
- What limitations or challenges might I encounter with this method?

Request:

Detailed guidance on setting up SPI using the MCSPI peripheral with interrupts connecting to UART pins.
The feasibility of using internal interrupts in this manner, given the hardware constraints.
Any potential limitations or considerations I should be aware of.
Resources or documentation that could assist with these configurations.

I appreciate any insights or recommendations from the community to explore these options effectively.

Thank you for your assistance!

Best Regards,
Petr

3 months ago

0 Vaibhav Kumar 3 months ago

TI__Mastermind 44166 points

Hi,

Allow me sometime to get back to this query.

Thanks,

Vaibhav

0 Vaibhav Kumar 3 months ago

TI__Mastermind 44166 points

Hi Petr,

I appreciate you putting forward a detailed list of questions.

Before we proceed further into the discussion I have a guide which I want you to look at and then we can check if the questions from your end are still open.

Guide: https://e2e.ti.com/support/processors-group/processors/f/processors-forum/1414084/faq-sk-am64b-mcspi-integration-guide

Regards,

Vaibhav

0 Petr Kucera 3 months ago in reply to Vaibhav Kumar

Prodigy 172 points

Hi Vaibhav,

Thank you for your responses with linkign MCSPI guide, but it is not answare for my question. I don’t have any issues configuring the MCSPI itself. As I described earlier, I'm using the LP-AM243x with the ALX package, which in this setup has isolated pins on the development board's core. Please see the attached screenshot for reference.

In the future, we hope to utilize a package that will expose pins for MCSPI on the M4 core. Currently, we are developing a prototype where we aim to have MCSPI running on the "isolated" M4 core. To leverage the M4 peripherals in our prototype, the idea is to write values to registers in the M4 core and create internal interrupts that reflect these values on pins initialized on the device. This would enable us to utilize hardware SPI functions but with different output configurations.

Questions:

Is it possible to realize this conceptually in terms of internal interrupt configuration that routes SPI values to different pins?
What approach or steps would you recommend for implementing this solution?

Regards,
Petr