Fault Protection

8 inputs provide fault protection which can force any of the PWM output pairs to a programmable value. This mechanism has priority over output overriding.

Figure 1. Fault Protection

The polarity level of the fault inputs is configured by the FPOL field in the PWM Fault Mode Register (PWM_FMR). For fault inputs coming from internal peripherals such as ADC or Timer Counter, the polarity level must be FPOL = 1. For fault inputs coming from external GPIO pins the polarity level depends on the user's implementation.

The configuration of the Fault Activation mode (FMOD field in PWMC_FMR) depends on the peripheral generating the fault. If the corresponding peripheral does not have “Fault Clear” management, then the FMOD configuration to use must be FMOD = 1, to avoid spurious fault detection. Refer to the corresponding peripheral documentation for details on handling fault generation.

Fault inputs may or may not be glitch-filtered depending on the FFIL field in PWM_FMR. When the filter is activated, glitches on fault inputs with a width inferior to the PWM peripheral clock period are rejected.

A fault becomes active as soon as its corresponding fault input has a transition to the programmed polarity level. If the corresponding bit FMOD is set to ‘0’ in PWM_FMR, the fault remains active as long as the fault input is at this polarity level. If the corresponding FMOD field is set to ‘1’, the fault remains active until the fault input is no longer at this polarity level and until it is cleared by writing the corresponding bit FCLR in the PWM Fault Clear Register (PWM_FCR). In the PWM Fault Status Register (PWM_FSR), the field FIV indicates the current level of the fault inputs and the field FIS indicates whether a fault is currently active.

Each fault can be taken into account or not by the fault protection mechanism in each channel. To be taken into account in the channel x, the fault y must be enabled by the bit FPEx[y] in the PWM Fault Protection Enable register (PWM_FPE1). However, synchronous channels (see Synchronous Channels) do not use their own fault enable bits, but those of the channel 0 (bits FPE0[y]).

The fault protection on a channel is triggered when this channel is enabled and when any one of the faults that are enabled for this channel is active. It can be triggered even if the PWM peripheral clock is not running but only by a fault input that is not glitch-filtered.

When the fault protection is triggered on a channel, the fault protection mechanism resets the counter of this channel and forces the channel outputs to the values defined by the fields FPVHx and FPVLx in the PWM Fault Protection Value Register 1 (PWM_FPV) and fields FPZHx/FPZLx in the PWM Fault Protection Value Register 2, as shown in the table below. The output forcing is made asynchronously to the channel counter.

Table 1. Forcing Values of PWM Outputs by Fault Protection
FPZH/Lx FPVH/Lx Forcing Value of PWMH/Lx
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 High impedance state (Hi-Z)
CAUTION:

If a comparison unit is enabled (see PWM Comparison Units) and if a fault is triggered in the channel 0, then the comparison cannot match.

As soon as the fault protection is triggered on a channel, an interrupt (different from the interrupt generated at the end of the PWM period) can be generated but only if it is enabled and not masked. The interrupt is reset by reading the interrupt status register, even if the fault which has caused the trigger of the fault protection is kept active.