Invalid warnings in MCUXpresso Pin tool?

[antonypace]

The pin tool in MCUXpresso is excellent but there are a couple of things I don't understand. One may even be a bug.

1. If I create a project using the SEMC demo for the iMXRT1020-EVK I can compile it and run it on the eval card. In the pin tool I get a warning that says: 'Peripheral SEMC is not initialised'. I can right click on the warning and add select 'Initialise SEMC peripheral'. This lets me select a component, it adds the required initialisation and the warning goes away. I love that feature! When I look at what has actually changed I see a load of defines, and comment changes - nothing that will change the actual code. All good so far. Is the warning just saying that the initialisation wasn't created by the pin tool? Do you agree that the SEMC was already actually initialised?

2. One of the pins that the SEMC peripheral initialisation configures is SEMC CSX[0]. On my board, and on the eval board, that peripheral signal is not used. When I select Initialise SEMC peripheral for my board I get a warning that the pin is not routed. Why do I get a warning for an unused signal?

So my main question is: can I safely ignore that warning or does SEMC_CSX[0] have to be routed to a pin even though it is not used on my board or the eval board?

My guess is that the warning is overzealous.

Many thanks

Ant

[imxrtuser]

Hi Antony,

Additionally to Jeremy's answer and your first question, what I have learned so far: I think the example projects show how to initialize peripherals in source code without using the peripherals tool. They only use the pin, clock and sometimes dcd tool.

I am using SDK_2.7.0 for RT1020 right now. If I clone the SEMC example project I first have to enable the peripherals tool

to get the warning. After enabling the tool the warning will be generated

because the Pin tool routes the SEMC pins but the peripherals tool does not initialize the SEMC peripheral. The SEMC peripheral will get initialized in source code.

The same is true for LPUART1. The pins are routed but the peripheral is not initialized because the DEBUG UART in example codes is LPUART1 and will be initialized in source code.

In other projects the SEMC peripheral will also be set up in DCD if you use the "semc_debug/release" configuration in IAR EWARM.

To the second question I don't really know it but I think that the tool can't really know if you are going to use the pin or not. In the SEMC peripheral driver you have to select a setting for CS pin mux and Chip selection and also the default values of the SEMC IOCR register defaults to some setting which is not "disabled" so in my opinion it only makes sense to show a warning that the pin is not routed. It is just a warning so if you are sure everything is correct the way you initialized it you can ignore it.

If you want to use the peripherals tool don't forget to include the generated source code files (peripherals.c and peripherals.h) in your project (in IAR EWARM you have to manually include them, don't know how the MCUXpresso IDE works) and to call the correct function(s) (default Functional Group is BOARD_InitPeripherals()).

Kind regards,

Stefan

[jeremyzhou]

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply.
1) Is the warning just saying that the initialization wasn't created by the pin tool? Do you agree that the SEMC was already actually initialized?
--In The MCUXpresso Configure Tool, the warning message would indicate you may miss some configurations, in addition, it also reminds you should put the initialization function in the BOARD_Init_xx() functions.
2) Why do I get a warning for an unused signal?
-- As mentioned above, it will indicate you may miss some configurations, you can ignore that if you exactly know what you do.

Have a great day,

TIC

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[edx1]

Hi Jeremyzhou,

thanks to you for reply,

according to the semc example the pin should be routed to GPIO_EMC_40:

So doing this the warning disappear, i've tried without dcd enable to initialize the semc from the peripherals.c files without luck, tried with dcd enable to ignore the peripherals.c but still i can get the program to run using the sdram, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[jeremyzhou]

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply.

Thanks for your reply.
I'm not very clear with your new question, whether you want to use the SDRAM, if yes, enable the DCD feature is a better way.

Have a great day,

TIC

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[edx1]

Hi Jeremyzhou,

Sorry as english isn't my native language i could not explain myself clear, so to avoid misundestendings let me put it simple: "how can i use the sdram to store variables", can you please guide me, i've already read these threads, but seems that nobody has find a definitive solution.

How do I run from BOARD_SDRAM on MIMXRT1020-EVK? 

Problem on using the I.MX RT1020 SDRAM 

Is the SDRAM on the 1020 EVK broken? 

Thanks.

[jeremyzhou]

Hi David,

Thank for your reply.
To use the SDRAM to store the variables, please follow the below steps.
1) Enable the DCD feature which would initialize the SDRAM during the boot-up phase.
2) The post shows how to place the data in the RAM, please refer to it for details.
https://community.nxp.com/thread/389100

Have a great day,

TIC

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[edx1]

Hi jeremyzhou,

I did the steps and the result was the same, i can't debug using the sdram as stack, so let me put the steps that i did, perhaps we could find where is my mistake:

Enable dcd:

How do i know that is enable, well look at the file and it's (in theory) enable:

Now select where i want to save the variables:

Build the program:

And when try to debug, a hard fault :/

So can you please tell what step i'm missing?, what else should be done to make it work?

Thanks.

[jeremyzhou]

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply.
Actually, I don't find something wrong about the steps you shared.
To provide the fastest possible support, I'd highly recommend you to refer to the demo projects in the SDK, you can use them as a template project for further development.

Have a great day,

TIC

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[edx1]

Hi jeremyzhou,

So then there's an extra step that i'm not doing and that's the reason that isn't working, tbh i've never used examples as templates, so anyway looks like it's a top secret the final step to make the sdram available.

[jeremyzhou]

Hi Antony Pace,

Thank you for your interest in NXP Semiconductor products and
for the opportunity to serve you.
Actually, I'm not very clear with the phenomenon you mentioned, so I'
Before answering your question, I was wondering if you can show me the phenomenon via the screenshots, and I'll appreciate if you can share the MEX file.
Looking forward to your reply.

Have a great day,

TIC

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[edx1]

Hi there,

The same problem here, so here're the screehshots:

Now if you try to solve the issue using the tool, these are the options it gives:

Sorry, i know this ain't my post but perhaps we could find a solution together.

Regards!!!!.

[antonypace]

Hi David, Many thanks for providing these examples. I thought I had left clear instructions how to invoke the error. Yours helped. There doesn't seem to be any help forthcoming from NXP.

[edx1]

Hi Antony,

It has been more than two weeks without any answer or even a reply, you're right, seems that there'll be no answer any time soon, so i guess all is left is wait till somebody finds a solution :/.
Regards!!!!