Answer

EFM32G, EFM32GG, EFM32HG, EFM32LG, EFM32TG, EFM32WG and EFM32ZG:

EZR32HG, EZR32LG and EZR32WG:

STANDARD 6mA (Default)

LOWEST 0.1mA

HIGH 20mA

LOW 1mA

EFM32JG, EFM32PG and EFR32:

WEAK - 3mA (IOVDD ≥ 3V), 1.2 mA (IOVDD ≥ 1.62V)

STRONG - 20mA (IOVDD ≥ 3V), 8 mA (IOVDD ≥ 1.62V)

The alternate drive strength is setup by DRIVEMODE or DRIVESTRENGTH & DRIVESTRENGTHALT bits in GPIO_Px_CTRL register. 

Answer

The GPIO slew rate setting is only available on EFM32JG, EFM32PG and EFR32.

The slew rate can be applied to pins on a port-by-port basis and is setup by SLEWRATE and SLEWRATEALT fields (0-7, higher values represent faster slew rate) in GPIO_Px_CTRL register.

Answer

It is because the GPIO_IntConfig() function is replaced by the GPIO_ExtIntConfig() function in EFM32 SDK (v4.3.0).

Answer

New features in the EFM32 Gemstone/EFR32 USART:

1. Extended the baud rate divider to a 20-bit value, with a 15-bit integral part and a 5-bit fractional part.
2. In addition to PRS RX input, PRS CLK input is added.

3. Automatic baud rate detection.

4. Hardware flow control.

5. Debug halt.

6. New 8-bit timer to create timing for RX timout, break detection response timeout and RX enable delay. 

Answer

Our high current drivers have both programmable current limiting and four levels of programmable slew rate, which can mitigate the effects of ground bounce. If you set the slew rate limiting to the slowest setting, you will have no ground bounce issues if the MCU is properly grounded and you are driving a capacitive (non-inductive) load.

Answer

Our devices can sink a maximum of 300 mA and source a maximum of 150 mA. The maximum sink or source for all I/Os on one supply is 400 mA. In other words, all I/Os in source mode must total less than 400 mA and all I/Os in sink mode must total less than 400 mA.

Answer

All of the Silicon Labs EFM32 STKs support the mbed eco-system.  After connecting the USB cable for the debug interface you should see a new Mass Storage drive created in Windows.  If the drive is not displayed, select the Kit Manager in the Simplicity Studio tile screen and update the STK firmware.  Once complete the drive should appear.

Answer

The crypto accelerator significantly reduces the clock cycles required to implement standard crypto algorithms.  Since advanced cryptography systems tend to be very complex and the development time to create such systems can be very long, Silicon Labs recommends using a standard set of libraries that have been proven in the industry.  ARM provides the mbedTLS libraries (formerly PolarSSL) that support many of the standard encryption/decryption algorithms and cipher modes in wide use today.  These libraries can be used "stand-alone" and do not need to use the mbed platform and online services.  

Since the mbedTLS libraries do not have any awareness of the crypto accelerator, we have provided our own crypto libraries to be used with the mbedTLS libraries.  In order to take advantage of the crypto accelerator the mbedTLS libraries, based on compile time options, will instead use the Silicon Labs libraries that offload the computationally intensive crytpo algorithms from the CPU to the crypto engine, significantly increasing performance while reducing power consumption. 

Several example projects are included in the Simplicity Studio tools to illustrate how to use the CRYPTO module for both symmetric (CBC-AES) and asymmetric (ECDSA) encryption.  In addition, application note AN0955: CRYPTO covers the different libraries and their uses.