Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:35:56 GMT

Would you be able to show me an example of how to configure a GPIOTE interrupt which will consume the least amount of current on a nRF53? I cannot seem to get it work properly.

Thank you,

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 15:03:09 GMT

This is all rather strange to me too. In the older SDK everything works just fine and all GPIOs interrupt correctly as the should. When I build the code, I reviewed the DTS files and observed I have GPIOTE disabled in all child images (e.g. mcuboot, b0, b0n, application, network). However, I am unable to disable the GPIOTEs in my child images and thus I am assuming that is the reason why I have about a ~200uA increase in current consumption.

I need to take a step back and just do a simple test with a single GPIO input trigger. I can then compare the two SDKs to ensure it isn't another peripheral running.

I should also point out I am using the nRF5340DK board files.

Thank you,

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Edvin — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 10:29:58 GMT

Hello,

What happens when you try to disable the gpiote? What worked in the older SDKs? Disabling GPIOTE while still receiving interrupts from other peripherals?

What was the current consumption in the old application, and what is the current consumption in the new one? Apart from enabling GPIOTE, are there any other changes to the application?

Do you have an application showing that it doesn't work in the new SDKs?

Best regards,

Edvin

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 21:18:13 GMT

This used to work in the older 2.4.2. I had the following in all of my .overlay files and had much less current consumption with full functionality with all my GPIO interrupts. Now I am unable to achieve the same current consumption because I am forced to keep the gpiote enabled in all my device tree files. I guess, for now I am stuck on 2.4.2.

&gpiote {
	status = "disabled";
};

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 18:28:45 GMT

This is all on a custom board. There are many other peripherals running, which is why you see 199uA. I am now trying to upgrade the SDK to the 3.0.2 and having the same issues.

I am running the software and have GPIOTE1 disabled in the device tree, but I am still able to get P1.00 to interrupt on the application core.

I understand the GPIOTE is required for interrupts, but it is unclear why it works in the older SDK when I disabled them in the device tree. It worked and resulted in a lower power draw.

My overall goal is to get the lowest possible power draw while using interrupts. How can I go about this? I tried the suggestion above, but the sense-edge-mask did not make much of a difference.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

grzegorz — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 12:12:23 GMT

Hi Simon

Yes, it is doable, but it contradicts the move that Nordic made when it transitioned to Zephyr and device tree. In NCS the device tree is the source of hardware configuration. Disabling GPIO in device tree but using it anyway through nrfx is not very elegant and not consistent. So it looks like there is no good solution for that in NCS right now. Thanks for your support.

Best regards,
Grzegorz

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Simonr — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 11:51:29 GMT

Hi Grzegorz

If you want to use the Zephyr GPIO driver, the interrupt handling is done from GPIOTE no matter what. But if you disable both the GPIO and GPIOTE and just use the nrfx library I think this should be doable without any "hacks".

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

grzegorz — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 08:18:47 GMT

Hi,

I'm not asking about API. This thread is about device tree. How to have GPIO enabled and GPIOTE disabled in device tree file without hacks.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Simonr — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 07:02:42 GMT

Please check out the DevAcademy course on GPIOs here that goes over the GPIO generic API that you can use for this I think.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

grzegorz — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:31:10 GMT

Hello Simonr

Let's assume I want to drive some pins but don't need any interrupts. How can I have GPIO enabled and GPIOTE disabled? Using "delete-property" is not very elegant and we shouldn't need such hacks in my opinion.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Simonr — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 08:59:14 GMT

Hi Christopher

Susheel asked me if I could take over this case, and indeed it seems like something is drawing a lot of power on your external board. In my opinion 199µA on the older SDK is also a bit high if your application is just doing GPIOTE, so I'm guessing your application does something else as well.

First off, to try and achieve the same power consumption on NCS v2.6.1, can you go through the migration guides for NCS v2.5.0 and v2.6.0 to make sure you've made all the necessary changes to your project in order to make it running as it should on v2.6.1?

Next, if you use Visual Studio Code and the nRF Connect extensions for development, you can use the nRF DeviceTree visual editor to see what pins and peripherals exactly are enabled in your project and check for any discrepancies between the NCS 2.4.2 and 2.6.1 versions of your project.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:50:50 GMT

This project is on a custom board design so it might not run on an DK.

On the previous SDK (v2.4.2) I was reading 199uA. On the newer SDK (v2.6.1) I am getting 396uA. Both were measured with the same PPK2. I have tried the above suggestions, but the current consumption is still at 396uA.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Susheel Nuguru — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 05:37:10 GMT

Christopher, Sorry for delayed response.

Have you done this power measurements on the DK aswell? And also what was your power measurement of your app on the older version of the SDK?

[quote user="kellac1"]but I am still drawing a lot more current (396uA vs. 199uA).[/quote]

So you were expecting 199uA but getting 396uA on newer SDK or is it same on the older SDK?

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 20:25:29 GMT

I am still stuck on this issue. My GPIOs with interrupts are configured like this.

gpio_pin_configure_dt(&primary_pwr, GPIO_INPUT);
gpio_pin_interrupt_configure_dt(&primary_pwr, GPIO_INT_EDGE_TO_ACTIVE);

Am I missing a new config for v2.6.1?

Thank you,

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 18:28:36 GMT

I added the following to my .overlay file. I see it represented in the zephyr.dts, but I am still drawing a lot more current (396uA vs. 199uA).

&gpio0 {
	compatible = "nordic,nrf-gpio";
	sense-edge-mask = <0xffffffff>;
};

&gpio1 {
	compatible = "nordic,nrf-gpio";
	sense-edge-mask = <0xffffffff>;
};

I also added this to try and set the latency to be low-power.

    // Low-power mode for GPIOTE
    NRF_GPIOTE->LATENCY = 0;

All other firmware is the same as it was in v2.4.2. Am I missing something else?

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 13:09:09 GMT

I think the confusion was around me using the nRF Connect SDK 2.4.2. It allowed me to disable the GPIOTE peripheral in the overlay file, but still have access to GPIO interrupts. I thought the GPIOTE was used for the PPI interfaces only.

I will try your suggestion and get back to you. Thank you.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Susheel Nuguru — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 10:27:28 GMT

I do not get it. You would like to disable gpiote peripheral but still want to configure interrupt pin on GPIO. GPIO peripheral do not have interrupts, look at the registers for GPIO peripheral. All the GPIO interrupts are handled by GPIOTE peripheral.

If you want interrupts on GPIO, you need to enable the GPIOTE. If you want to use GPIOTE and have lower power consumption, you need to make sure that you are using PORT events with lower accuracy sampling not using the HFCLK.

[quote user="Aryan"]You need to use PORT events instead of high precision events when using GPIOTE with lower power consumption. Can you try if the suggestion mentioned here works with nRF53 aswell?[/quote]

If you still want interrupts on GPIO, then please try this as power consumption was your initial issue that made you think that you can disable GPIOTE.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 17:09:37 GMT

My above approach works to compile the code, but now the interrupt pin does not get configured when running the following function.

gpio_pin_interrupt_configure_dt(&int_pin, (GPIO_INT_EDGE_TO_ACTIVE));

It fails because internally it is looking for GPIOTE to be enabled. This worked without an issue on v2.4.2.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 14:46:47 GMT

I added this to my overlay file and it appears to work now. I am going to check the power output to be sure.

&gpio0 {
	/delete-property/ gpiote-instance;
};

&gpio1 {
	/delete-property/ gpiote-instance;
};

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 14:30:28 GMT

When I build with it set to "disabled", I get the following error. The zephyr.dts has this also for the two GPIOS. How can I remove the need for the <&gpiote> in the definition for the gpios?

C:/ncs/v2.7.0/zephyr/include/zephyr/toolchain/gcc.h:87:36: error: static assertion failed: "Please enable GPIOTE instance for used GPIO port!"

			gpio0: gpio@842500 {
				compatible = "nordic,nrf-gpio";
				gpio-controller;
				reg = < 0x842500 0x300 >;
				#gpio-cells = < 0x2 >;
				status = "okay";
				port = < 0x0 >;
				gpiote-instance = < &gpiote >;
				phandle = < 0x6 >;
			};
			gpio1: gpio@842800 {
				compatible = "nordic,nrf-gpio";
				gpio-controller;
				reg = < 0x842800 0x300 >;
				#gpio-cells = < 0x2 >;
				ngpios = < 0x10 >;
				status = "okay";
				port = < 0x1 >;
				gpiote-instance = < &gpiote >;
				phandle = < 0x9 >;
			};

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Susheel Nuguru — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:26:45 GMT

It should have been disabled when you disable here. Can you check in your build\zephyr\zephyr.dts file to see if this is disabled or if something else kept it enabled? If you can post your zephyr.dts file here, I can take a look.

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Christopher — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 11:59:24 GMT

Sorry, I would like to disable the GPIOTE peripheral. I am unable to build the code unless it is enabled, but that is not what we desire.

Thank you

RE: Unable to disable GPIOTE for nRF Connect SDK 2.6.1

Susheel Nuguru — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 10:28:03 GMT

You need to use PORT events instead of high precision events when using GPIOTE with lower power consumption. Can you try if the suggestion mentioned here works with nRF53 aswell?