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ST20-GP1
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state as soon as the clocks are stable. All internal logic is static so no information is lost
during power down.
Power to most of the chip removed — only the real time clock supply (
RTCVDD
) power on.
10.2.1 Power-down mode
The ST20-GP1 enters power-down when:
the low power alarm is programmed and started, via configuration registers, providing there
are no interrupts pending.
The ST20-GP1 exits power-down when:
an unmasked interrupt becomes pending.
the low power alarm counter reaches zero.
In power-down mode the processor and all peripherals are stopped, including the external memory
controller and optionally the PLL. Effectively the internal clock is stopped and functional operation
is stalled. On restart the clock is restarted and the chip resumes normal functional operation.
10.2.2 Low power mode
Low power mode can be achieved in one of two ways, as listed below.
Availability of direct clock input — this allows external control of clocking directly and thus
direct control of power consumption.
Internal global system clock may be stopped — in this case the external clock remains run-
ning. This mechanism allows the PLL to be kept running (if desired) so that wake up from
low power mode will be fast.
Wake-up from low power mode can be from: specific external pin activity (
Interrupt
pin); or the low
power timer alarm.
The low power timer and alarm are provided to control the duration for which the global clock
generation is stopped during low power mode. The timer and alarm registers can be set by the
device store instructions and read by the device load instructions.
Low power timer
The timer keeps track of real time, even when the internal clocks are stopped. The timer is a 64-bit
counter which runs off an external clock (
LPClockIn
). This clock rate must not be more than one
eighth of the system clock rate.
The real time clock is powered from a separate Vdd (
RTCVDD
) allowing it to be maintained at
minimal power consumption.
Low power alarm
There is also a 40-bit counter which can be used as a low power alarm or as a watchdog timer, this
is determined by the setting of the
WdEnable
register, see Table 10.10.
Alarm
A write to the
LPAlarmStart
register starts the low power alarm counter and the ST20-GP1 enters
low power mode. When the counter has counted down to zero, assuming no other valid wake-up
sources occur first, the ST20-GP1 exits low power mode and the global clocks are turned back on.
Whilst the clocks are turned off the
LowPowerStatus
pin is high, otherwise it is low.