Tasking Pin Mapper Tool

To enhance design collaboration between the TASKING VX-toolset for ARM® and Altium Designer, a Tasking Pin Mapper wizard tool is now available.

In today’s complex processor devices the pin functionality and internal connectivity is configured by internal processor registers, as defined in the embedded design phase. In order to create a complete product design, that unique processor configuration needs to be represented in a schematic document of a PCB design project. To automate this process for the TASKING VX-toolset for ARM, the new Tasking Pin Mapper tool has been developed to ‘pull’ this information directly into Altium Designer.

The tool is provided as a Software Extension for Altium Designer, and facilitates data synchronization from the TASKING toolset’s own Pin Mapper to an Altium Designer schematic document.  The resulting schematic document will reflect the device pin configurations that have been assigned in the TASKING VX-toolset for ARM’s Pin Mapper, as saved in its Pin Configuration file (*.pincfg).

The Wizard provides a direct data path from an embedded software project based on a discrete ARM processor in the TASKING VX-toolset for ARM and its PCB project representation in Altium Designer.  The transferred design data includes identifying information such as the processor chip, its pin assignments to peripherals and interrupts, electrical pin attributes and symbolic names.

The Tasking Pin Mapper wizard parses the VX-toolset’s Pin Mapper file (*.pincfg) to extract this information, then places an appropriately configured component (with matching pin properties, nets, etc) on a new or existing schematic document. The component itself is sourced from a suitable Altium Designer Integrated Library.

Tasking Pin Mapper Extension

To install the Pin Mapper software extension, select the Purchased tab in Altium Designer’s Extension Manager (DXP » Extensions and Updates) and locate the Tasking Pin Mapper tool icon in the Software Extensions category. Click its  icon to download and install the extension, and then restart Altium Designer to enable the extension’s functionality.

Once installed and ready to use, the extension will appear under the Extension Manager’s Installed tab.

Using the Wizard

The Tasking Pin Mapper wizard tool becomes available when a Schematic document is open, and can be accessed from Altium Designer's Tools menu – Tools » Tasking Pin Mapper.

Select Pin Mapper file

Once the opening dialog is dismissed, the source pin configuration file (*.pincfg) from the VX-Toolset’s Pin Mapper can be selected. Use the dialog’s file browser button to locate and load the desired tasking Pin Mapper file.

Select Component

The wizard's following Select Component screen will, if possible, populate with available options for the processor device.

If the Tasking pin mapper file has specified an explicit processor type, the system will attempt to locate it in the available Altium Designer libraries. Alternatively, if the pin file defines a processor family (say, the ST Microelectronics STM32_T2 family of ARM Cortex processors) the dialog will list all compatible types from the Altium Designer library – select the desired processor variant from the list.

The dialog's processor list will be blank if a compatible processor library is not loaded or available in Altium Designer. Use the button to locate and install a suitable Integrated library .

To select a different processor from that offered by dialog list, use the option to open the Browse Libraries dialog. Select the desired library from the Libraries drop down menu and choose a suitable processor component from the list.

In the case where an explicit processor has been defined in the pin mapper file, or has been selected from a library using the Other component function, the dialog list will show a single entry for the processor component.

Configure Schematic options

The wizard's next dialog defines the properties and behavior of the generated processor schematic.

Since the source pin mapper file defines both the pin functionality and external connections, its representative schematic needs to be configured to present that information in a way that is compatible with the target PCB design project. As such, this means basic name settings through to how pins, ports and compiler directives are handled.

The wizard's dialog for schematic sheet configuration includes the following settings:

• Sheet file name – The proposed schematic file name. Use the browser button  to define or locate an alternative schematic file. 
• Component Designator – The designator for the selected processor component. Edit as required.
• Units – Select the appropriate units for the schematic document.
• Connect Power Pins via Power Ports – Automatically connect the design's Power pins to standard Power Ports.
  
• Unused I/O pins – Configure how unassigned processor I/O pins will be presented on the schematic.
  • Ignore – Do not configure unused processor I/O pins.
    
  • Add No ERC Directive – Prevent Electrical Rule Checks on unused I/O pins by placing No ERC directive objects.
    
  • Tie to individual ports – Connect corresponding ports to unused I/O pins.
    
  • Tie to Single port – Assign unused I/O pins to one port object.
    

PCB Project Schematic

The wizard's Schematic options dialog screen is followed by a final Place confirmation screen that provides a summary of the selected settings. Once this is dismissed with the Finish button the new processor schematic document is added to the current project and opened in Altium Designer's schematic editor.

Note that the schematic uses Harnesses where applicable to provide a convenient and simplified connection process for the associated schematics in the PCB design project.