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nordic,nrf-gpio-forwarder

Vendor: Nordic Semiconductor

Description

This is an abstract device responsible for forwarding pins between cores.

In nRF53 family of SoCs, GPIO pins must be explicitly forwarded by
the application core to the network core if the latter should drive them.
The purpose of this abstract device is to represent all GPIO pins that the
nRF53 application core should forward to the nRF53 network core.

Once the control over selected GPIO pins is forwarded to it, the network
core is responsible for configuring the pins and driving them as needed.

Here is an example of how a nrf-gpio-forwarder can be used with a nRF5340
combined with a nRF21540 Front-End module. Consider the following node
present in DTS file targeted for the nRF5340 network core, which defines
the details of the nRF21540 Front-End module's interface:

nrf_radio_fem: nrf21540 {
  compatible = "nordic,nrf21540-fem";
  tx-en-gpios = <&gpio0 30 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
  rx-en-gpios = <&gpio1 11 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
  pdn-gpios   = <&gpio1 10 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
  mode-gpios  = <&gpio1 12 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
};

Since the nRF21540 Front-End module should be controlled by the nRF5340
network core, all the GPIO pins used to control it must be forwarded by
the nRF5340 application core to the network core. Consider the following
nrf-gpio-forwarder node defined in DTS file targeted for the nRF5340
application core:

gpio_fwd: nrf-gpio-forwarder {
  compatible = "nordic,nrf-gpio-forwarder";
  nrf21540-gpio-if {
    gpios = <&gpio0 30 0>, <&gpio1 11 0>, <&gpio1 10 0>, <&gpio1 12 0>;
  };
};

In the above example, the nrf-gpio-forwarder node is configured to forward
control over the following GPIO pins to the network core:

  - P0.30 (matching `tx-en-gpios`)
  - P1.11 (matching `rx-en-gpios`)
  - P1.10 (matching `pdn-gpios`)
  - P1.12 (matching `mode-gpios`)

Please note that the GPIO flags provided for child nodes of the forwarder
are ignored. In order to configure the GPIOs passed to the forwarder, their
GPIO flags must be set in the matching node that these GPIOs are forwarded
to. In the above example, the GPIO flags must be set in the nrf21540 node.
They are set to 0 in the nrf-gpio-forwarder node as they are ignored anyway.

Child nodes for the forwarder can be defined independently by multiple DTS
files. They are merged into a single node with multiple child nodes when
processing devicetree for an application build. However, in order for that
to happen, names of the child nodes must be unique in the scope of a single
nrf-gpio-forwarder instance.

Properties

Top level properties

These property descriptions apply to “nordic,nrf-gpio-forwarder” nodes themselves. This page also describes child node properties in the following sections.

Properties not inherited from the base binding file.

(None)

Child node properties

Name

Type

Details

gpios

phandle-array

Array of GPIOs to be forwarded. Note that GPIO flags provided for
elements of this array are ignored. In order to configure the GPIOs
from this array, their GPIO flags must be set in the matching
node that these GPIOs are forwarded to.

This property is required.