11.6.1 Overview

One PAC is associated with each AHB-APB bridge and the PAC can provide write protection for registers of each peripheral connected on the same bridge.

The PAC peripheral bus clock (CLK_PACx_APB) can be enabled and disabled in the Power Manager. CLK_PAC0_APB and CLK_PAC1_APB are enabled are reset. CLK_PAC2_APB is disabled at reset. Refer to PM – Power Manager for details. The PAC will continue to operate in any Sleep mode where the selected clock source is running. Write-protection does not apply for debugger access. When the debugger makes an access to a peripheral, write-protection is ignored so that the debugger can update the register.

Write-protect registers allow the user to disable a selected peripheral’s write-protection without doing a read-modify-write operation. These registers are mapped into two I/O memory locations, one for clearing and one for setting the register bits. Writing a one to a bit in the Write Protect Clear register (WPCLR) will clear the corresponding bit in both registers (WPCLR and WPSET) and disable the write-protection for the corresponding peripheral, while writing a one to a bit in the Write Protect Set (WPSET) register will set the corresponding bit in both registers (WPCLR and WPSET) and enable the write-protection for the corresponding peripheral. Both registers (WPCLR and WPSET) will return the same value when read.

If a peripheral is write-protected, and if a write access is performed, data will not be written, and the peripheral will return an access error (CPU exception).

The PAC also offers a safety feature for correct program execution, with a CPU exception generated on double write-protection or double unprotection of a peripheral. If a peripheral n is write-protected and a write to one in WPSET[n] is detected, the PAC returns an error. This can be used to ensure that the application follows the intended program flow by always following a write-protect with an unprotect, and vice versa. However, in applications where a write-protected peripheral is used in several contexts, for example, interrupts, care should be taken so that either the interrupt can not happen while the main application or other interrupt levels manipulate the write-protection status, or when the interrupt handler needs to unprotect the peripheral, based on the current protection status, by reading WPSET.