General-purpose input/output

A general-purpose input/output (GPIO) is an uncommitted digital signal pin on an integrated circuit or electronic circuit (e.g. MCUs/MPUs) board which may be used as an input or output, or both, and is controllable by software. GPIOs have no predefined purpose and are unused by default. If used, the purpose and behavior of a GPIO is defined and implemented by the designer of higher assembly-level circuitry: the circuit board designer in the case of integrated circuit GPIOs, or system integrator in the case of board-level GPIOs. Integrated circuit (IC) GPIOs are implemented in a variety of ways. Some ICs provide GPIOs as a primary function whereas others include GPIOs as a convenient "accessory" to some other primary function. Examples of the former include the Intel 8255, which interfaces 24 GPIOs to a parallel communication bus, and various GPIO expander ICs, which interface GPIOs to serial communication buses such as I2C and SMBus. An example of the latter is the Realtek ALC260 IC, which provides eight GPIOs along with its main function of audio codec. Microcontroller ICs usually include GPIOs. Depending on the application, a microcontroller's GPIOs may comprise its primary interface to external circuitry or they may be just one type of I/O used among several, such as analog signal I/O, counter/timer, and serial communication. In some ICs, particularly microcontrollers, a GPIO pin may be capable of other functions than GPIO. Often in such cases it is necessary to configure the pin to operate as a GPIO (vis-á-vis its other functions) in addition to configuring the GPIO's behavior. Some microcontroller devices (e.g., Microchip dsPIC33 family) incorporate internal signal routing circuitry that allows GPIOs to be programmatically mapped to device pins. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) extend this ability by allowing GPIO pin mapping, instantiation and architecture to be programmatically controlled. File:Ic-photo-Intel--D8255.JPG|Parallel bus interface to 24 GPIOs ([[Intel 8255]]) File:Rockwell R6522P Versatile Interface Adapter.