MAE 3185 - Introduction to Mechatronics
General Purpose Input Output
GPIOs are nothing but digital input/output pins, the state of which can be controlled directly by the software running on the processors, or by a number of other peripherals available in the μC. As discussed in previous chapters, the RP2040 μC has 30 GPIOs, out of which 4 can also be used as inputs to the chip’s Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC). Each GPIO in RP2040 can perform a specific function of a specific peripheral. Section 1.4 of the reference explains the function that each GPIO can perform for each peripheral that we may discuss throughout this course.
The actual working of a GPIO pin requires understanding of how a transistor works. Thus, this chapter will attempt to explain working of a GPIO in a much simpler way. However, keep in mind that this simplified explanation is not really true.