Virtual ports for connecting core independent peripherals
AssigneeMicrochip Technology Incorporated
InventorsKeith Edwin Curtis, Stephen Matthew Cowden
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A microcontroller has a central processing unit and a plurality of peripheral units and a plurality of port bit circuits provided through at least one input/output port. At least one port bit circuit of the plurality of port bit circuits is not connected to an external pin and the at least one port bit circuit is configurable to route a signal received at the port bit circuit to a selected peripheral of the microcontroller.
Claims21
A microcontroller comprising in an integrated circuit package a single chip comprising a central processing unit and a plurality of peripheral units and a plurality of port bit circuits provided through at least one input/output port, wherein each port bit circuit comprises a latch for providing an output signal for the input/output port, wherein at least one port bit circuit of the plurality of port bit circuits is not connected to any of a plurality of external pins of the integrated circuit package and wherein the at least one port bit circuit is configurable to route an input signal received at the port bit circuit to a selected peripheral of the microcontroller.
A method for operating a microcontroller in an integrated circuit package comprising a single chip comprising a central processing unit and a plurality of peripheral units and a plurality of port bit circuits provided through at least one input/output port, wherein each port bit circuit comprises a latch for providing an output signal for the input/output port wherein at least one port bit circuit of the plurality of port bit circuits is not connected to any of a plurality of external pins of the integrated circuit packge, the method comprising:
- selecting a signal source for the at least one port bit circuit;
- selecting a destination for the at least one port bit circuit, whereby the at least one port bit circuit routes an input signal from the selected signal source received at the at least one port bit circuit to a selected peripheral of the microcontroller.
A microcontroller comprising in an integrated circuit package a single chip comprising a central processing unit, a plurality of peripherals and a plurality of input/output ports comprising port bit circuits, wherein each port bit circuit comprises a latch coupled with a tristate output driver providing an output function and an input driver, wherein at least one of the input/output ports comprises a plurality of bits connected to external pins of the microcontroller, wherein each input/output port is controllable by the central processing unit through a configuration register to provide an output function of the tristate output driver or to disable the output function by putting the tristate output driver into a tristate, and wherein at least one port bit circuit of the plurality of input/output ports is not connected to any of the external pins and wherein the at least one port bit circuit is configurable to route an input signal received at the port bit circuit to a selected peripheral of the microcontroller, wherein any port bit not connected to any of the external pins is initially disabled and can be re-enabled through configuration, wherein the at least one port bit circuit comprises a first multiplexer selecting the input signal and wherein the first multiplexer is coupled with a bit of said latch register and with outputs of a plurality of peripherals of the microcontroller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.