I'm working specifically with the LPC4078FBD100 but this applies to any MCU I think.
When I'm drawing the schematic for a new board, I want to know what pins on the MCU map to the given peripheral that I'm wiring up at the moment. However, the datasheets for MCUs invariably just give a list of the pins in port/bit order with the mux'ed functions on the right. So finding all the pins that map to UART3 is a really time-consuming and error-prone process especially when you have 100+ pins. For a concrete example look at the pin mapping table for the LPC4078FBD100:
http://www.nxp.com/documents/data_sheet/LPC408X_7X.pdf
The pin table is 40 pages long and as such it takes forever to find anything because its organized by port and bit rather than by peripheral/function. So to find all the pins mux'ed to SPI0 for example, you literally have to scan through 40 pages and go cross-eyed as a result.
I've heard that some people will use a spreadsheet to organize pin and function for smaller chips (<30 pins) but what happens when you get to 100+ pins? Given that most pins are mux'ed to about 4-5 different functions, that would mean you would have to type 500+ rows of pin information into the spreadsheet for these larger MCUs!
So how does everyone deal with this issue in an efficient and robust manner?
When I'm drawing the schematic for a new board, I want to know what pins on the MCU map to the given peripheral that I'm wiring up at the moment. However, the datasheets for MCUs invariably just give a list of the pins in port/bit order with the mux'ed functions on the right. So finding all the pins that map to UART3 is a really time-consuming and error-prone process especially when you have 100+ pins. For a concrete example look at the pin mapping table for the LPC4078FBD100:
http://www.nxp.com/documents/data_sheet/LPC408X_7X.pdf
The pin table is 40 pages long and as such it takes forever to find anything because its organized by port and bit rather than by peripheral/function. So to find all the pins mux'ed to SPI0 for example, you literally have to scan through 40 pages and go cross-eyed as a result.
I've heard that some people will use a spreadsheet to organize pin and function for smaller chips (<30 pins) but what happens when you get to 100+ pins? Given that most pins are mux'ed to about 4-5 different functions, that would mean you would have to type 500+ rows of pin information into the spreadsheet for these larger MCUs!
So how does everyone deal with this issue in an efficient and robust manner?
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