RPi Low-level peripherals

Introduction
In addition to the familiar USB, Ethernet and HDMI ports, the R-Pi offers lower-level interfaces intended to connect more directly with chips and subsystem modules. These GPIO (general purpose I/O) signals on the 2x13 header pins include SPI, I2C, serial UART, 3V3 and 5V power. These interfaces are not "plug and play" but require care to avoid miswiring. The pins use a 3V3 logic level and are not tolerant of 5V levels, such as you might find on a 5V powered Arduino. Not yet software-enabled are the flex cable connectors with CSI (camera serial interface) and DSI (display serial interface), and a serial link inside the HDMI connector called CEC (consumer electronics control).

General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO)


General Purpose Input/Output (a.k.a. GPIO) is a generic pin on a chip whose behavior (including whether it is an input or output pin) can be controlled (programmed) through software.

The Raspberry Pi allows peripherals and expansion boards (such as the upcoming Rpi Gertboard) to access the CPU by exposing the inputs and outputs.

For further general information about GPIOs, see:the wikipedia article.

The production Raspberry Pi board has a 26-pin 2.54 mm (100 mil) expansion header, arranged in a 2x13 strip. They provide 8 GPIO pins plus access to I²C, SPI, UART), as well as +3.3 V, +5 V and GND supply lines. Pin one is the pin in the first column and on the bottom row.

GPIO voltage levels are 3.3 V and are not 5 V tolerant. There is no over-voltage protection on the board - the intention is that people interested in serious interfacing will use an external board with buffers, level conversion and analog I/O rather than soldering directly onto the main board.

All the GPIO pins can be reconfigured to provide alternate functions, SPI, PWM, I²C and so. At reset only pins GPIO 14 & 15 are assigned to the alternate function UART, these two can be switched back to GPIO to provide a total of 17 GPIO pins. Each of their functions and full details of how to access are detailed in the chipset datasheet.

Each GPIO can interrupt, high/low/rise/fall/change. There is currently no support for GPIO interrupts in the official kernel, howewer a patch exists, requiring compilation of modified source tree.

GPIO input hysteresis (Schmitt trigger) can be on or off, output slew rate can be fast or limited, and source and sink current is configurable from 2 mA up to 16 mA. Note that chipset GPIO pins 0-27 are in the same block and these properties are set per block, not per pin. See GPIO Datasheet Addendum - GPIO Pads Control. Particular attention should be applied to the note regarding SSO (Simultaneous Switching Outputs): to avoid interference, driving currents should be kept as low as possible.

The available alternative functions and their corresponding pins are detailed below. These numbers are in reference to the chipset documentation and may not match the numbers exposed in Linux. Only fully usable functions are detailed, for some alternative functions not all the necessary pins are available for the funtionality to be actually used.

There is also some information on the Tutorial on Easy GPIO Hardware & Software.

Kernel boot messages go to the UART at 115200 bit/s.

Header Pinout, top row:

Header Pinout, bottom row:

KiCad symbol:

Pin 3 (SDA0) and Pin 5 (SCL0) are preset to be used as an I²C interface. So there are 1.8 kilohm pulls up resistors on the board for these pins.

Pin 12 supports PWM.

It is also possible to reconfigure GPIO connector pins P1-7, 15, 16, 18, 22 (chipset GPIOs 4 and 22 to 25) to provide an ARM JTAG interface. However ARM_TMS isn't available on the GPIO connector (chipset pin 12 or 27 is needed). Chipset pin 27 is available on S5, the CSI camera interface however.

It is also possible to reconfigure GPIO connector pins P1-12 and 13 (chipset GPIO 18 and 21) to provide an I2S (a hardware modification may be required ) or PCM interface. However, PCM_FS and PCM_DIN (chipset pins 19 and 20) are needed for I2S or PCM.

A second I²C interface (GPIO02_ALT0 is SDA1 and GPIO03_ALT0 is SCL1) and two further GPIOs (GPIO05_ALT0 is GPCLK1, and GPIO27) are available on S5, the CSI camera interface.

A note about GPIO vs the schematic
You may notice that the GPIO connector as documented in the schematic does NOT match with what is on this wiki page. Do NOT update this wiki page. The pins which are marked as DNC should not be used in order to be compatible with possible future designs. The plan is that if a new design comes along and if the layout permits it we will connect additional GPIO pins to those DNC pins. (Gert's first vote is for GPIO 19 and 20. That gives us the second PWM, second SPI, I2S/PCM, slave I²C and slave SPI.)

Referring to pins on the Expansion header
The header is referred to as "The GPIO Connector (P1)". To avoid nomenclature confusion between Broadcom signal names on the SoC and pin names on the expansion header, the following naming is highly recommended.


 * The expansion header is referred to as "Expansion Header" or "GPIO Connector (P1)"
 * Pins on the GPIO connector (P1) are referred to as P1-01, etc.
 * Names GPIO0, GPIO1, GPIOx-ALTy, etc. refer to the signal names on the SoC as enumerated in the Broadcom datasheet, where "x" matches BCM2835 number (without leading zero) and "y" is the alternate number column 0 to 5 on page 102-103 of the Broadcom document. For example, depending on what you are describing, use either "GPIO7" to refer to a row of the table, and "GPIO7-ALT0" would refer to a specific cell of the table.
 * When refering to signal names, you should modify the Broadcom name slightly to minimize confusion. The Broadcom SPI bus pin names are fine, such as "SPI0_*" and "SPI1_*", but they didn't do the same on the I²C and UART pins. Instead of using "SDA0" and "SCL0", you should use "I2C0_SDA" and "I2C0_SCL"; and instead of "TX" or "TXD" and "RX" or "RXD", you should use "UART0_TXD" and "UART0_RXD".

Power pins
The maximum permitted current draw from the 3.3 V pin is 50 mA.

Maximum permitted current draw from the 5 V pin is the USB input current (usually 1 A) minus any current draw from the rest of the board.
 * Model A: 1000 mA - 500 mA -> max current draw: 500 mA
 * Model B: 1000 mA - 700 mA -> max current draw: 300 mA

GPIO hardware hacking
The complete list of chipset GPIO pins which are available on the GPIO connector is: "0, 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25"

As noted above, GPIO00 and 01 (SDA0 and SCL0) have 1.8 kilohm pull-up resistors to 3.3 V.

If 17 GPIOs aren't sufficient for your project, there are a few other signals potentially available, with varying levels of software and hardware (soldering iron) hackery skills:

GPIO02, 03, 05 and 27 are available on S5 (the CSI interface) when a camera peripheral is not connected to that socket, and are configured by default to provide the functions SDA1, SCL1, CAM_CLK and CAM_GPIO respectively. SDA1 and SCL1 have 1K6 pull-up resistors to 3.3 V.

GPIO06 is LAN_RUN and is available on pad 12 of the footprint for IC3 on the Model A. On Model B, it is in use for the Ethernet function.

There are a few other chipset GPIO pins accessible on the PCB but are in use:


 * GPIO16 drives status LED D5 (usually SD card access indicator)
 * GPIO28-31 are used by the board ID and are connected to resistors R3 to R10.
 * GPIO40 and 45 are used by analogue audio and support PWM. They connect to the analogue audio circuitry via R21 and R27 respectively.
 * GPIO46 is HDMI hotplug detect (goes to pin 6 of IC1).
 * GPIO47 to 53 are used by the SD card interface. In particular, GPIO47 is SD card detect (this would seem to be a good candidate for re-use).  GPIO47 is connected to the SD card interface card detect switch; GPIO48 to 53 are connected to the SD card interface via resistors R45 to R50.

Driver support
The Foundation will not include a GPIO driver in the initial release, standard Linux GPIO drivers should work with minimal modification.

The community implemented SPI and I²C drivers, which will be integrated with the new Linux pinctrl concept in a later version of the kernel. A first compiled version as Linux modules is available to install on the 19/04/2012 Debian image, including 1-wire support. The I²C and SPI driver uses the hardware modules of the microcontroller and interrupts for low CPU usage, the 1-wire support uses bitbanging on the GPIO ports, which results in higher CPU usage.

GordonH wrote a (mostly) Arduino compatible/style WiringPi library in C for controlling the GPIO pins.

GPIO Driving Example (C)
Gert van Loo & Dom, has provided some tested code which accesses the GPIO pins through direct GPIO register manipulation in C-code. (Thanks to Dom for doing the difficult work of finding and testing the mapping.) Example GPIO code:

// // How to access GPIO registers from C-code on the Raspberry-Pi // Example program // 15-January-2012 // Dom and Gert //

// Access from ARM Running Linux


 * 1) define BCM2708_PERI_BASE       0x20000000
 * 2) define GPIO_BASE               (BCM2708_PERI_BASE + 0x200000) /* GPIO controller */


 * 1) include 
 * 2) include 
 * 3) include 
 * 4) include 
 * 5) include 
 * 6) include 
 * 7) include 
 * 8) include 
 * 9) include 


 * 1) include 


 * 1) define PAGE_SIZE (4*1024)
 * 2) define BLOCK_SIZE (4*1024)

int mem_fd; char *gpio_mem, *gpio_map; char *spi0_mem, *spi0_map;

// I/O access volatile unsigned *gpio;

// GPIO setup macros. Always use INP_GPIO(x) before using OUT_GPIO(x) or SET_GPIO_ALT(x,y)
 * 1) define INP_GPIO(g) *(gpio+((g)/10)) &= ~(7<<(((g)%10)*3))
 * 2) define OUT_GPIO(g) *(gpio+((g)/10)) |= (1<<(((g)%10)*3))
 * 3) define SET_GPIO_ALT(g,a) *(gpio+(((g)/10))) |= (((a)<=3?(a)+4:(a)==4?3:2)<<(((g)%10)*3))


 * 1) define GPIO_SET *(gpio+7) // sets   bits which are 1 ignores bits which are 0
 * 2) define GPIO_CLR *(gpio+10) // clears bits which are 1 ignores bits which are 0

void setup_io;

int main(int argc, char **argv) {  int g,rep;

// Set up gpi pointer for direct register access setup_io;

// Switch GPIO 7..11 to output mode

/************************************************************************\ * You are about to change the GPIO settings of your computer. * * Mess this up and it will stop working! * * It might be a good idea to 'sync' before running this program        * * so at least you still have your code changes written to the SD-card! * \************************************************************************/

// Set GPIO pins 7-11 to output for (g=7; g<=11; g++) {   INP_GPIO(g); // must use INP_GPIO before we can use OUT_GPIO OUT_GPIO(g); }

for (rep=0; rep<10; rep++) {    for (g=7; g<=11; g++) {      GPIO_SET = 1<<g; sleep(1); }    for (g=7; g<=11; g++) {      GPIO_CLR = 1<<g; sleep(1); } }

return 0;

} // main

// // Set up a memory regions to access GPIO // void setup_io {  /* open /dev/mem */ if ((mem_fd = open("/dev/mem", O_RDWR|O_SYNC) ) < 0) { printf("can't open /dev/mem \n"); exit (-1); }

/* mmap GPIO */

// Allocate MAP block if ((gpio_mem = malloc(BLOCK_SIZE + (PAGE_SIZE-1))) == NULL) { printf("allocation error \n"); exit (-1); }

// Make sure pointer is on 4K boundary if ((unsigned long)gpio_mem % PAGE_SIZE) gpio_mem += PAGE_SIZE - ((unsigned long)gpio_mem % PAGE_SIZE);

// Now map it  gpio_map = (unsigned char *)mmap(      (caddr_t)gpio_mem,      BLOCK_SIZE,      PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,      MAP_SHARED|MAP_FIXED,      mem_fd,      GPIO_BASE   );

if ((long)gpio_map < 0) { printf("mmap error %d\n", (int)gpio_map); exit (-1); }

// Always use volatile pointer! gpio = (volatile unsigned *)gpio_map;

} // setup_io

GPIO Pull Up/Pull Down Register Example
// enable pull-up on GPIO24&25 GPIO_PULL = 2; short_wait; // clock on GPIO 24 & 25 (bit 24 & 25 set) GPIO_PULLCLK0 = 0x03000000; short_wait; GPIO_PULL = 0; GPIO_PULLCLK0 = 0;

GPIO Driving Example (Python)
This uses the Python module available at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/RPi.GPIO Any Python script that controls GPIO must be run as root. import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

GPIO.setup(11, GPIO.IN) GPIO.setup(12, GPIO.OUT)
 * 1) Set up the GPIO channels - one input and one output

input_value = GPIO.input(11)
 * 1) Input from pin 11

GPIO.output(12, True)
 * 1) Output to pin 12

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) GPIO.setup(17, GPIO.IN) GPIO.setup(18, GPIO.OUT) input_value = GPIO.input(17) GPIO.output(18, True)
 * 1) The same script as above but using BCM GPIO 00..nn numbers

GPIO Driving Example (Java)
This uses the Java library available at http://code.google.com/p/rpi-gpio-java/. Any Java application that controls GPIO must be run as root.

public static void main(String[] args) { GpioGateway gpio = new GpioGatewayImpl;

//set up the GPIO channels - one input and one output gpio.setup(Boardpin.PIN11_GPIO17, Direction.IN); gpio.setup(Boardpin.PIN12_GPIO18, Direction.OUT);

// input from pin 11 boolean input_value = gpio.getValue(Boardpin.PIN11_GPIO17);

// output to pin 12 gpio.setValue(Boardpin.PIN12_GPIO18, true); }

GPIO Driving Example (Shell script)
This must be done as root. To change to the root user: sudo su -
 * 1) !/bin/sh


 * 1) GPIO numbers should be from this list
 * 0, 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25


 * 1) Note that the GPIO numbers that you program here refer to the pins
 * 2) of the BCM2835 and *not* the numbers on the pin header.
 * So, if you want to activate GPIO7 on the header you should be
 * 1) using GPIO4 in this script. Likewise if you want to activate GPIO0
 * 2) on the header you should be using GPIO17 here.

echo "4" > /sys/class/gpio/export echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio4/direction
 * 1) Set up GPIO 4 and set to output

echo "7" > /sys/class/gpio/export echo "in" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio7/direction
 * 1) Set up GPIO 7 and set to input

echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio4/value
 * 1) Write output

cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio7/value
 * 1) Read from input

echo "4" > /sys/class/gpio/unexport echo "7" > /sys/class/gpio/unexport
 * 1) Clean up

GPIO Driving Example (Shell script - take 2)
You need the wiringPi library from https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/wiringpi/download-and-install/ once installed there is a new command gpio which can be used as a non-root user to control the GPIO pins.

The man page man gpio has full details, but briefly:

gpio -g mode 17 out gpio -g mode 18 pwm

gpio -g write 17 1 gpio -g pwm 18 512

the -g flag tells the gpio program to use the BCM GPIO pin numbering scheme (otherwise it will use the wiringPi numbering scheme by default)

The gpio command can also control the internal pull-up and pull-down resistors:

gpio -g mode 17 up

This sets the pull-up ressitor - however any change of mode, even setting a pin that's already set as an input to an input will remove the pull-up/pull-down resistors, so they may need to be reset.

Additionally, it can export/un-export the GPIO devices for use by other non-root programms - e.g. Python scripts. (Although you may need to drop the calls to GPIO.Setup in the Python scripts, and do the setup separately in a little shell script, or call the gpio program from inside Python).

gpio export 17 out gpio export 18 in These exports GPIO-17 and sets it to output, and exports GPIO-18 and sets it to input.

and when done:

gpio unexport 17 The export/unexport commands always use the BCM GPIO pin numbers regardless of the presence of the -g flag or not.

If you want to use the internal pull-up/down's with the /sys/class/gpio mechanisms, then you can set them after exporting them. So:

gpio -g export 4 in gpio -g mode 4 up

You can then use GPIO-4 as an input in your Python, Shell, Java, etc. programs without the use of an external resistor to pull the pin high. (If that's what you were after - e.g. a simple push button switch taking the pin to ground)

A fully working example of a shell script using the GPIO pins can be found here: http://project-downloads.drogon.net/files/gpioExamples/tuxx.sh

GPIO Driving Example (C)
This must be done as root. To change to the root user: sudo su - You must also get and install the bcm2835 library, which supports GPIO and SPI interfaces. Details and downloads from http://www.open.com.au/mikem/bcm2835

// blink.c // // Example program for bcm2835 library // Blinks a pin on an off every 0.5 secs // // After installing bcm2835, you can build this // with something like: // gcc -o blink blink.c -l bcm2835 // sudo ./blink // // Or you can test it before installing with: // gcc -o blink -I ../../src ../../src/bcm2835.c blink.c // sudo ./blink // // Author: Mike McCauley (mikem@open.com.au) // Copyright (C) 2011 Mike McCauley // $Id: RF22.h,v 1.21 2012/05/30 01:51:25 mikem Exp $


 * 1) include 

// Blinks on RPi pin GPIO 11
 * 1) define PIN RPI_GPIO_P1_11

int main(int argc, char **argv) {   // If you call this, it will not actually access the GPIO // Use for testing //   bcm2835_set_debug(1);

if (!bcm2835_init) return 1;

// Set the pin to be an output bcm2835_gpio_fsel(PIN, BCM2835_GPIO_FSEL_OUTP);

// Blink while (1) {	// Turn it on	bcm2835_gpio_write(PIN, HIGH); // wait a bit delay(500); // turn it off bcm2835_gpio_write(PIN, LOW); // wait a bit delay(500); }

return 0; }

GPIO Driving Example (Perl)
This must be done as root. To change to the root user: sudo su - Supports GPIO and SPI interfaces. You must also get and install the bcm2835 library. Details and downloads from http://www.open.com.au/mikem/bcm2835 You must then get and install the Device::BCM2835 perl library from CPAN http://search.cpan.org/~mikem/Device-BCM2835-1.0/lib/Device/BCM2835.pm use Device::BCM2835; use strict;

Device::BCM2835::init || die "Could not init library";
 * 1) call set_debug(1) to do a non-destructive test on non-RPi hardware
 * 2) Device::BCM2835::set_debug(1);

Device::BCM2835::gpio_fsel(&Device::BCM2835::RPI_GPIO_P1_11,                            &Device::BCM2835::BCM2835_GPIO_FSEL_OUTP);
 * 1) Blink pin 11:
 * 2) Set RPi pin 11 to be an output

while (1) {   # Turn it on    Device::BCM2835::gpio_write(&Device::BCM2835::RPI_GPIO_P1_11, 1); Device::BCM2835::delay(500); # Milliseconds # Turn it off Device::BCM2835::gpio_write(&Device::BCM2835::RPI_GPIO_P1_11, 0); Device::BCM2835::delay(500); # Milliseconds }

GPIO Driving Example (C#)
RaspberryPiDotNet library is available at https://github.com/cypherkey/RaspberryPi.Net/. The library includes a GPIOFile and GPIOMem class. The GPIOMem requires compiling Mike McCauley's bcm2835 library above in to a shared object.

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using RaspberryPiDotNet; using System.Threading;

namespace RaspPi {   class Program {       static void Main(string[] args) {           // Access the GPIO pin using a static method GPIOFile.Write(GPIO.GPIOPins.GPIO00, true);

// Create a new GPIO object GPIOMem gpio = new GPIOMem(GPIO.GPIOPins.GPIO01); gpio.Write(false); }   } }

MIPI CSI-2
On the production board, we bring out the MIPI CSI-2 (Camera Serial Interface ) to a 15-way flat flex connector S5, between the Ethernet and HDMI connectors. A compatible camera will be made available in due time.

DSI
On the production board, we bring out the DSI (Display Serial Interface ) to a 15-way flat flex connector labelled S2, next to Raspberry Pi logo. It has two data lanes and a clock lane, to drive a possible future LCD screen device. Some smart phone screens use DSI.

CEC
HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control for HDMI) is supported by hardware but some driver work will be needed and currently isn't exposed into Linux userland. Eben notes that he has seen CEC demos on the Broadcom SoC they are using.

For more information about HDMI-CEC and what you could do with it on the Raspberry Pi please see the CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) over HDMI article.