@Tim Edwards @jeffdi Hello, I have a MPW5 chip that has a digital input and some RF outputs. I would like to know if it's necessary to configure the GPIO without the nucleo, to be able to test the RF outputs on a minimalist PCB that we'll need to make.

How are your default values set for the GPIO (i.e.,

user_defines.v

file contents)? If it powers up into the correct default state, then no, you don't need the Nucleo board.

I think there isn't this file in the repo

I think MPW5 was transitional between the time that we introduced the user_defines.v file and the time that we required it as a mandatory part of the precheck. The default user_defines.v for MPW2 (and I think that remained through MPW5) set all GPIO defaults to a bidirectional digital configuration, so you would have to run the Nucleo board to get the pins configured into an analog state. Noting that your project is an analog project using the caravan harness, then that does not apply to any signals you connected to one of the 11 analog pads---Those you can access without requiring the processor or the Nucleo board. Only the other 27 GPIOs would require configuration if you had analog signals connected to them.

My project has only one digital input. If the digital pins are configured as a bidirectional by default, I can use without the Nucleo, right?

This

mprj_io[13]

The schematics should be in the https://github.com/efabless/caravel_board repository.

About the GPIO config, my digital input (which can be bidirectional) will work without the Nucleo?

@Hugo Dias: If you had edited the

user_defines.v

file so that all of the GPIO pins power up into the configuration state that you need them to run in, then no, you do not need the Nucleo board.

This is just in synthesys level to defines the power up state, right? Fow now, if I want to change this I need to load the management core firmware to modify the gpio configuration, ok? So, if I do this I can test without caravel board/nucleo board?

If you have to run a program to configure the GPIO, then you need to run on the Nucleo board. There is some possibility that the calibration done by the Nucleo will be valid when the system is taken off the Nucleo, but I have not been very successful in getting that to work. How well it works depends a bit on the exact configuration. If the RF outputs are on the Caravan analog pads, then no configuration is needed. Otherwise, successfully configuring an input blindly or partially blindly will have a higher chance of success if the GPIOs being configured are at the lower end (near GPIO 0) or the upper end (near GPIO 37) and away from the middle (GPIO 18, 19), since the GPIOs are programmed along two serial chains on right and left, and the further along the serial chain, the higher the accumulated probability that a hold violation will change due to changes in ambient conditions.

This bindly is done through the firmware?

If you run without Nucleo it's blind.