STM32MP13 VREFBUF internal peripheral

Applicable for

1. Article purpose[edit | edit source]

The purpose of this article is to:

briefly introduce the VREFBUF peripheral and its main features,
indicate the peripheral instances assignment at boot time and their assignment at runtime (including whether instances can be allocated to secure contexts),
list the software frameworks and drivers managing the peripheral,
explain how to configure the peripheral.

2. Peripheral overview[edit | edit source]

The VREFBUF peripheral is an internal voltage regulator.

The VREFBUF is supplied via the VDDA pin. When enabled, it can provide a reference voltage in the range of: 1,65V, 1,8V, 2,048V or 2,5V. The VREFBUF can be used to provide an analog voltage reference for:

ADC internal peripheral
External components through the dedicated VREF+ pin.

The VREFBUF can be left unused. In this case, an external voltage regulator can provide reference voltage to VREF+ pin.

Refer to the STM32MP13 reference manuals for the complete list of features, and to the software frameworks and drivers, introduced below, to see which features are implemented.

3. Peripheral usage[edit | edit source]

This chapter is applicable in the scope of the OpenSTLinux BSP running on the Arm^® Cortex^®-A processor(s), and the STM32CubeMPU Package running on the Arm^® Cortex^®-M processor.

3.1. Boot time assignment[edit | edit source]

3.1.1. On STM32MP13x lines [edit | edit source]

The VREFBUF is usually not used at boot time. But it may be needed by the SSBL (see Boot chain overview), to supply the internal ADC for example.

Click on to expand or collapse the legend...

Check boxes illustrate the possible peripheral allocations supported by STM32 MPU Embedded Software:

⬚ means that the peripheral can be assigned to the given boot time context, but this configuration is not supported in STM32 MPU Embedded Software distribution.
☐ means that the peripheral can be assigned to the given boot time context.
☑ means that the peripheral is assigned by default to the given boot time context and that the peripheral is mandatory for the STM32 MPU Embedded Software distribution.
✓ is used for system peripherals that cannot be unchecked because they are hardware connected in the device.

The present chapter describes STMicroelectronics recommendations or choice of implementation. Additional possibilities might be described in STM32 MPU reference manuals.

Domain	Peripheral	Boot time allocation				Comment
Domain	Peripheral	Instance	Cortex-A7 secure (ROM code)	Cortex-A7 secure (TF-A BL2)	Cortex-A7 non-secure (U-Boot)	Comment
Analog	VREFBUF	VREFBUF			⬚	OP-TEE offers SCMI regulator service to manage VREFBUF

3.2. Runtime assignment[edit | edit source]

3.2.1. On STM32MP13x lines [edit | edit source]

Click on to expand or collapse the legend...

STM32MP13 internal peripherals

Check boxes illustrate the possible peripheral allocations supported by STM32 MPU Embedded Software:

⬚ means that the peripheral can be assigned to the given runtime context, but this configuration is not supported in STM32 MPU Embedded Software distribution.
☐ means that the peripheral can be assigned to the given runtime context.
☑ means that the peripheral is assigned by default to the given runtime context and that the peripheral is mandatory for the STM32 MPU Embedded Software distribution.
✓ is used for system peripherals that cannot be unchecked because they are hardware connected in the device.

Refer to How to assign an internal peripheral to an execution context for more information on how to assign peripherals manually or via STM32CubeMX.
The present chapter describes STMicroelectronics recommendations or choice of implementation. Additional possibilities might be described in STM32MP13 reference manuals.

Domain	Peripheral	Runtime allocation			Comment
Domain	Peripheral	Instance	Cortex-A7 secure (OP-TEE)	Cortex-A7 non-secure (Linux)	Comment
Analog	VREFBUF	VREFBUF	☐	⬚	Assignment (single choice) OP-TEE offers SCMI regulator service to manage VREFBUF

Information

As soon as one VREFBUF client peripheral (ADC1 or ADC2) is set secure, the VREFBUF should be set secure with ETZPC configuration.

In OpenSTlinux, VREFBUF is only managed by OP-TEE exported through SCMI even if all ADC are non-secured.

4. Software frameworks and drivers[edit | edit source]

Below are listed the software frameworks and drivers managing the VREFBUF peripheral for the embedded software components listed in the above tables.

SCMI
Linux^®: regulator framework
- drivers/regulator/stm32-vrefbuf.c (deprecated as SCMI is used in OpenSTLinux)
OP-TEE driver: core/drivers/regulator/stm32_vrefbuf.c

5. How to assign and configure the peripheral[edit | edit source]

The peripheral assignment can be done via the STM32CubeMX graphical tool (and manually completed if needed).
This tool also helps to configure the peripheral:

partial device trees (pin control and clock tree) generation for the OpenSTLinux software components,
HAL initialization code generation for the STM32CubeMPU Package.

The configuration is applied by the firmware running in the context in which the peripheral is assigned.

For the Linux kernel configuration, please refer to device internal regulator. An example can be found also in ADC DT configuration examples

5.1. DT configuration example[edit | edit source]

In OP-TEE device tree:

 &etzpc {
 	st,decprot = <
 		DECPROT(STM32MP1_ETZPC_VREFBUF_ID, DECPROT_S_RW, DECPROT_UNLOCK)
 	>;
 };
 &scmi_regu {
 	scmi_vrefbuf: voltd-vrefbuf {
 		reg = <VOLTD_SCMI_VREFBUF>;
 		voltd-supply = <&vrefbuf>;
 	};
 };
 &vrefbuf {
 	vdda-supply = <&vdd>;
 	status = "okay";
 };

In Linux device tree:

 &adc_1 {
 ...
 	vref-supply = <&scmi_vrefbuf>;
 	status = "okay";
 };

 &scmi_regu {
 	scmi_vrefbuf: voltd-vrefbuf {
 		reg = <VOLTD_SCMI_VREFBUF>;
 		regulator-name = "vrefbuf";
 		regulator-min-microvolt = <2500000>;
 		regulator-max-microvolt = <2500000>;
 	};
 };