rp2040-pio-emulator 0.87.0

RP2040 emulator for the testing and debugging of PIO programs

Emulator for the PIO Blocks within the RP2040 Microcontroller (Python Edition)

Introduction

An emulator for the Programmable Input/Output (PIO) blocks that are present within the Raspberry Pi Foundation's RP2040 Microcontroller. It is designed to assist in the analysis of PIO programs and to help you by:

• Enabling unit tests to be written.
• Answering questions such as: How many clock cycles are being consumed?
• Supporting the visualization of GPIO outputs over time.
• Providing alternatives to debugging on real hardware, which can be time consuming.

Quick Start

Below is a slight variation of the example used within the Quick Start Guide.

from pioemu import emulate

program = [0xE029, 0x0041, 0x2080]  # Count down from 9 using X register

generator = emulate(program, stop_when=lambda _, state: state.x_register == (2 ** 32) - 1)

for before, after in generator:
  print(f"X register: {before.x_register} -> {after.x_register}")

Documentation

A Tour of pioemu provides a more detailed explanation than the Quick Start Guide offers. In addition, there is a FAQ available that might contain an answer to your question. However, if none of these provides you with the necessary information then please consider creating a new issue - thanks!

Additional Examples

Some additional examples are available within the rp2040-pio-emulator-examples repository, including:

1. TDD example for the Pimoroni Blinkt!

2. Tool to create Fast Signal Trace (FST) files suitable for analysis by GTKWave

3. Visualisation of square wave program using a Jupyter Notebook

Supported Instructions

Instruction	Supported	Notes
JMP	:heavy_check_mark:
WAIT	:heavy_check_mark: :warning:	IRQ variant is not supported
IN	:heavy_check_mark:
OUT	:heavy_check_mark: :construction:	EXEC destination not implemented
PUSH	:heavy_check_mark:
PULL	:heavy_check_mark:
MOV	:heavy_check_mark: :construction:	Some variants and operations not implemented
IRQ	:heavy_multiplication_x:
SET	:heavy_check_mark:

Known Limitations

This software is under development and currently has limitations - the notable ones are:

1. Not all of the available instructions are supported - please refer to the table above.

2. No support for pin-sets associated with SET or IN; all pin numbers are with respect to GPIO 0.

3. Pin-sets do not wrap after GPIO 31.

4. PULL IFEMPTY and PUSH IFFULL do not respect the pull and push thresholds.

5. No direct support for the concurrent running of multiple PIO programs; a single State Machine is emulated and not an entire PIO block.

Thanks To

• aaronjamt for contributing features and fixes.
• Josverl for contributing features.
• winnylourson for contributing a bug fix.
• Lerc for reporting a bug.
• bikeNomad for contributing a bug fix.