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Overview

boards/renesas/ek_ra8m1/doc/index.rst

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.. zephyr:board:: ek_ra8m1

Overview

The EK-RA8M1 is an Evaluation Kit for Renesas RA8M1 MCU Group which is the first 32-bits MCUs based on new Arm Cortex-M85. The kit offer multiple external interface and peripherals set optimized on board allows user to seamlessly evaluate the features of the RA8M1 MCU and develop embedded system application in various field.

The key features of the EK-RA8M1 board are categorized in three groups as follow:

MCU Native Pin Access

  • 480MHz Arm Cortex-M85 based RA8M1 MCU in 224 pins, BGA package
  • Native pin access through 2 x 50-pin, and 2 x 40-pin male headers
  • MCU current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement
  • Multiple clock sources - RA8M1 MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 20.000MHz and 32,768 Hz refeence clocks. Additional low precision clocks are available internal to the RA8M1 MCU

System Control and Ecosystem Access

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

  • Four 5V input sources

    • USB (Debug, Full Speed, High 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/I3C) connectors
    • One SparkFun Qwiic connector
    • Two Digilent Pmod (SPI, UART and I2C/I3C) connectors
    • Arduino (Uno R3) connector
    • MikroElektronika mikroBUS connector

  • MCU boot configuration jumper

Special Feature Access

  • Ethernet (RJ45 RMII interface)
  • USB High Speed Host and Device (micro-AB connector)
  • 512 Mb (64 MB) External Octo-SPI Flash (present in the MCU Native Pin Access area of the EK-RA8M1 board)
  • CAN FD (3-pin header)

Hardware

Detailed Hardware features for the RA8M1 MCU group can be found at RA8M1 Group User's Manual Hardware_

.. figure:: ra8m1_block_diagram.jpg :width: 442px :align: center :alt: RA8M1 MCU group feature

RA8M1 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Detailed Hardware features for the EK-RA8M1 MCU can be found at EK-RA8M1 - User's Manual_

Supported Features

.. zephyr:board-supported-hw::

.. note::

  • For using Ethernet module on EK-RA8M1, remove jumper J61 to enable Ethernet B
  • For using SDHC driver on EK-RA8M1, remove jumper J61 to use with channel 0
  • For using I3C driver on EK-RA8M1, install jumper J61 to use with channel 0

Programming and Debugging

.. zephyr:board-supported-runners::

Applications for the ek_ra8m1 board 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: Only support from SDK v0.16.6 in which GCC for Cortex Arm-M85 was available. To build for EK-RA8M1 user need to get and install GNU Arm Embedded toolchain from https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/tag/v0.16.6

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA8M1 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-RA8M1 - User's Manual_

  3. Execute west command

    .. code-block:: console

     west flash -r jlink

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: R7FA8M1AH
  • 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-RA8M1 Website_
  • RA8M1 MCU group Website_

.. _EK-RA8M1 Website: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/products/microcontrollers-microprocessors/ra-cortex-m-mcus/ek-ra8m1-evaluation-kit-ra8m1-mcu-group

.. _RA8M1 MCU group Website: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/products/microcontrollers-microprocessors/ra-cortex-m-mcus/ra8m1-480-mhz-arm-cortex-m85-based-microcontroller-helium-and-trustzone

.. _EK-RA8M1 - User's Manual: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/document/mat/ek-ra8m1-users-manual

.. _RA8M1 Group User's Manual Hardware: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/document/mah/ra8m1-group-users-manual-hardware

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

.. _zephyr-sdk-0.16.5-6-ge895c4e_linux-x86_64: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/suites/22342313531/artifacts/1379111922