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Overview

boards/renesas/ek_ra6m4/doc/index.rst

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.. zephyr:board:: ek_ra6m4

Overview

The Renesas RA6M4 group uses the high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M33 core with TrustZone®. Secure element functionality providing better performance, unlimited secure key storage, key management, and lower BOM cost, as well as the integrated Ethernet MAC with individual DMA ensures high data throughput. The RA6M4 is suitable for IoT applications requiring Ethernet, future proof security, large embedded RAM, and low active power consumption down to 99uA/MHz running the CoreMark® algorithm from Flash.

The key features of the EK-RA6M4 board are categorized in three groups as follow:

MCU Native Pin Access

  • 200MHz Arm Cortex-M33 based RA6M4 MCU in 144 pins, LQFP package
  • Native pin access through 4 x 40-pin male headers
  • MCU current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement
  • Multiple clock sources - RA6M4 MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 24.000 MHz and 32,768 Hz reference clock. Additional low precision clocks are available internal to the RA6M4 MCU

System Control and Ecosystem Access

  • USB Full Speed Host and Device (micro-AB connector)

  • Three 5 V input sources

    • USB (Debug, Full Speed)
    • External power supply (using surface mount clamp test points and power input vias)

  • Three Debug modes

    • Debug on-board (SWD)
    • Debug in (ETM, SWD and JTAG)
    • Debug out (SWD)

  • User LEDs and buttons

    • Three User LEDs (red, blue, green)
    • Power LED (white) indicating availability of regulated power
    • Debug LED (yellow) indicating the debug connection
    • Two User buttons
    • One Reset button

  • Five most popular ecosystems expansions

    • Two Seeed Grove system (I2C/Analog) connectors
    • One SparkFun Qwiic connector
    • Two Digilent Pmod (SPI and UART) connectors
    • Arduino (Uno R3) connector
    • MikroElektronika mikroBUS connector

  • MCU boot configuration jumper

Special Feature Access

  • Ethernet (RJ45 RMII interface)
  • 32 Mb (256 Mb) External Quad-SPI Flash
  • 64 Mb (512 Mb) External Octo-SPI Flash

Hardware

Detailed hardware features for the RA6M4 MCU group can be found at RA6M4 Group User's Manual Hardware_

.. figure:: ra6m4_block_diagram.webp :width: 442px :align: center :alt: RA6M4 MCU group feature

RA6M4 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Detailed hardware features for the EK-RA6M4 MCU can be found at EK-RA6M4 - User's Manual_

Supported Features

.. zephyr:board-supported-hw::

Programming and Debugging

.. zephyr:board-supported-runners::

Applications for the ek_ra6m4 board target configuration can be built, flashed, and debugged in the usual way. See :ref:build_an_application and :ref:application_run for more details on building and running.

.. note::

In applications using ethernet, ethernet buffers must be placed in non-secure RAM. This requires configuration of the Implementation Defined Attribution Unit (IDAU), which must be applied by partition memory using Renesas Flash Programmer.

Partition Memory

Renesas Flash Programmer is available at (Renesas Flash Programmer Download_). Once downloaded and installed, check rfp-cli is available or set rfp-cli path manually.

Renesas partition data file will be available at build/zephyr/zephyr.rpd. Connect jumper J6 then run Renesas Flash Programmer.

To partition memory manually, execute:

.. code-block:: console

  # From the root of the zephyr repository
  rfp-cli -device ra -tool jlink -fo boundary-file build/zephyr/zephyr.rpd -p

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA6M4 via the on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger. SEGGER J-link's drivers are available at https://www.segger.com/downloads/jlink/

To flash the program to board

  1. Connect to J-Link OB via USB port to host PC

  2. Make sure J-Link OB jumper is in default configuration as describe in EK-RA6M4 - User's Manual_

  3. Execute west command to flash using jlink runner

    .. code-block:: console

     west flash -r jlink

  4. Or flash using rfp runner, this will partition memory then flash zephyr image.

    .. code-block:: console

    west flash -r rfp

Debugging

You can use Segger Ozone (Segger Ozone Download_) for a visual debug interface

Once downloaded and installed, open Segger Ozone and configure the debug project like so:

  • Target Device: R7FA6M4AF
  • Target Interface: SWD
  • Target Interface Speed: 4 MHz
  • Host Interface: USB
  • Program File: <path/to/your/build/zephyr.elf>

Note: It's verified that we can debug OK on Segger Ozone v3.30d so please use this or later version of Segger Ozone

References

  • EK-RA6M4 Website_
  • RA6M4 MCU group Website_
  • RA6 Ethernet Controller configuration_

.. _EK-RA6M4 Website: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/products/microcontrollers-microprocessors/ra-cortex-m-mcus/ek-ra6m4-evaluation-kit-ra6m4-mcu-group

.. _RA6M4 MCU group Website: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/products/microcontrollers-microprocessors/ra-cortex-m-mcus/ra6m4-200mhz-arm-cortex-m33-trustzone-high-integration-ethernet-and-octaspi

.. _EK-RA6M4 - User's Manual: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/document/man/ek-ra6m4-v1-users-manual

.. _RA6M4 Group User's Manual Hardware: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/document/man/ra6m4-group-user-s-manual-hardware?r=1333976

.. _Segger Ozone Download: https://www.segger.com/downloads/jlink#Ozone

.. _Renesas Flash Programmer Download: https://www.renesas.com/en/software-tool/renesas-flash-programmer-programming-gui

.. _RA6 Ethernet Controller configuration: https://www.renesas.com/en/blogs/configuration-issues-ra6-ethernet-controller#document