Device Level

The element device provides the outermost frame of the description.

• Only one device section is allowed per file. All other elements like peripherals, registers, fields, enumerated values, and vendor extensions are described within this scope.
• A device contains one or more peripherals.
• Optional elements like size, access, resetValue, and resetMask defined on this level are used as default values throughout the device description, unless they get redefined at a lower level.

---

<device schemaVersion="xs:decimal" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xs:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="CMSIS-SVD.xsd">

    <name>identifierType</name>
    <version>xs:string</version>
    <description>xs:string</description>
    <addressUnitBits>scaledNonNegativeInteger</addressUnitBits>
    <width>scaledNonNegativeInteger</width>

    <!-- registerPropertiesGroup -->
    <size>scaledNonNegativeInteger</size>
    <access>accessType</access>
    <resetValue>scaledNonNegativeInteger</resetValue>
    <resetMask>scaledNonNegativeInteger</resetMask>
    <!-- end of registerPropertiesGroup -->

    <peripherals>
        ...
    </peripherals>

    <vendorExtensions>
        ...
    </vendorExtensions>

</device>

Attribute Name	Description	Type	Occurrence
xmlns:xs	Specifies the underlying XML schema to which the CMSIS-SVD schema is compliant. Has to be set to: "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance".	xs:decimal	1..1
xmlns:xs	Specifies the file path and file name of the CMSIS-SVD Schema. For example, CMSIS-SVD.xsd.	xs:string	1..1
schemaVersion	Specifies the CMSIS-SVD schema version the description is compliant to (for example, 1.1).	xs:decimal	1..1
Element Name	Description	Type	Occurrence
name	The name string is used to identify the device or device series. Device names are required to be unique.	xs:string	1..1
version	The string defines the version of the file. Silicon vendors maintain the description throughout the life-cycle of the device and ensure that all updated and released copies have a unique version string. Higher numbers indicate a more recent version.	xs:string	1..1
description	String for describing main features of a device (for example CPU, clock frequency, peripheral overview).	xs:string	1..1
addressUnitBits	Defines the number of data bits uniquely selected by each address. The value for Cortex-M based devices is 8 (byte-addressable).	scaledNonNegativeInteger	1..1
width	Defines the number of data bit-width of the maximum single data transfer supported by the bus infrastructure. This information is relevant for debuggers when accessing registers, because it might be required to issue multiple accesses for accessing a resource of a bigger size. The expected value for Cortex-M based devices is 32.	scaledNonNegativeInteger	1..1
See registerPropertiesGroup for details.
size	Defines the default bit-width of any register contained in the device (implicit inheritance).	scaledNonNegativeInteger	0..1
access	Defines the default access rights for all registers.	accessType	0..1
protection	Defines extended access protection for all registers.	protectionStringType	0..1
resetValue	Defines the default value for all registers at RESET.	scaledNonNegativeInteger	0..1
resetMask	Identifies which register bits have a defined reset value.	scaledNonNegativeInteger	0..1
peripherals	Next level of description. see Peripherals Level for details.		1..1
vendorExtensions	The content and format of this section of the description is unspecified. Silicon vendors may choose to provide additional information. By default, this section is ignored for constructing the CMSIS files. It is up to the silicon vendor to specify a schema for this section.	xs:anyType (restriction)	0..1

Example:

<device schemaVersion="1.0" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xs:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="CMSIS-SVD.xsd">
  <name>ARM_Cortex_M3</name>
  <version>0.1</version>
  <description>ARM Cortex-M3 based Microcontroller demonstration device</description>
  <addressUnitBits>8</addressUnitBits>
  <width>32</width>
  <size>32</size>
  <access>read-write</access>
  <resetValue>0</resetValue>
  <resetMask>0xffffffff</resetMask>

  <peripherals>
    ...
  </peripherals>
</device>

The device description above is at version 0.1 and uniquely identifies the device by the name "ARM_Cortex_M3". The peripherals are memory mapped in a byte-addressable address space with a bus width of 32 bits. The default size of the registers contained in the peripherals is set to 32 bits. Unless redefined for specific peripherals, all registers or fields are read-write accessible. A reset value of 0, valid for all 32 bits as specified by the reset mask, is set for all registers unless redefined at a lower level.