I plan to use the Promira Serial Platform and the API Software with SPI devices. I’ll be sending commands and reading the responses. I have an application in mind, but before I get started, I want to be sure my application will work. Will you please let me know if I am on the right track?

Overview:

1. Create a queue.
2. Add SPI write/read commands to the queue: groups of SPI commands separated by a delay.
3. Submit the queue.
4. Collect the SPI responses.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4.

Questions

1. Will I need to repeat steps 1-5 if I want to change the SPI commands that I send to the device?
2. Is there an easy way to create and use multiple queues? (I have a lot of different test scenarios to run.)

Thanks for your question!  You are right on track to accomplish what you have set out to do. With the Promira Software API you can create and submit up to 127 queues as needed. You do not need to create a new queue each time you run a new series of commands with SPI devices (or I2C devices for that matter).

Figure 1: Promira Serial Platform

Each of the 127 queues in the Promira Software API can contain up to 255 commands. In other words - multiple queues can be submitted asynchronously and be collected later. To submit the queue and then collect the responses, run step 3 and then run step 4.

You can also submit different queues consecutively and then collect the responses consecutively. For example:  run step 3, step 3, step 3, and then run step 4, step 4, step 4.

The commands that you will use for your operations are:

ps_channel_submitted_count()

ps_channel_uncollected_count()

For details, please refer to the section General Application Interface in the Promira Serial Platform I2C/SPI Active User Manual.

Additional resources that you may find helpful include the following:

• Promira Serial Platform I2C/SPI Active User Manual

• Promira API Documentation

We hope this answers your question. If you have other questions about our Promira Serial Platform, host adapters or other Total Phase products, feel free to email us at sales@totalphase.com, or if you already own one of our devices and have a technical question, please submit a request for technical support.