Recreating RP2040 PIO Interface in an FPGA

Re:Recreating RP2040 PIO Interface in an FPGA by synergy20 on Sunday May 21, 2023 @01:03PM (#36022824)

that's very cool, maybe one day it can be burnt into a CPLD or integrated into other MCUs' designs directly.

Motorola used to have CPM, TI has PRU for higher end chips.

All of these are doing similar things: using software to create IO peripherals on the fly.

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Re:Recreating RP2040 PIO Interface in an FPGA by bri3d on Sunday May 21, 2023 @01:18PM (#36022960)

The Pi engineers claim that at least some aspects of PIO are "patent-pending," [0] so a 1:1 reimplementation in another MCU would probably infringe on some claim or another eventually.

Yes, software defined I/O is not uncommon which is one reason I'm quite curious about the specific claims in the PIO patents. Another good example is the Infineon Peripheral Control Processor (PCP) used in Tricore. It's much more powerful ISA wise than PIO, but conceptually extremely similar.

0: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=307115#p18374...

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Re:Recreating RP2040 PIO Interface in an FPGA by snvzz on Sunday May 21, 2023 @01:30PM (#36023062)

Disgusting stuff.

Meantime, RISC-V is trying to standardize GPIO, Watchdogs and other common peripheral interfaces.

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Re:Recreating RP2040 PIO Interface in an FPGA by MayeulC on Monday May 22, 2023 @02:56AM (#36028269)

I came here to inquire about this. The relevant patents haven't been published yet? I wouldn't include this in a commercial design due to potential infringement.

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