Testing the PIC32 I/O Speed

18. March 2009 by pilot.

In the last several months I have seen a couple of postings on the PIC32 forum about users testing the speed of the PIC32 I/O. It is quite normal and healthy for a community of Embedded Control designers to worry about the actual I/O performance of a microcontroller, and even more so when the microcontroller in question claims to be able to operate all its peripherals (I/O pins included) at the same (top) speed of the core: 80MHz!

With such capability and thanks to the special Atomic I/O operations (PORTINV), the theory says that a PIC32 could produce a 40MHz output square wave!

This performance is quite unique among competing microcontrollers (they typically achieve 1/2 the processor top speed), but we have to admit it can be tricky to prove. Here is what I recommend you do to get as close to the theoretical limit as possible… Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in PIC32, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »