nRF52-PCA10040

Overview

Zephyr applications use the nrf52_pca10040 board configuration to run on the nRF52 Development Kit (PCA10040) hardware. It provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 ARM Cortex-M4F CPU and the following devices:

  • NVIC
  • RTC
  • UART
  • GPIO
  • FLASH
  • RADIO (Bluetooth Low Energy)
  • Segger RTT (RTT Console)
nRF52 PCA10040 DK

nRF52 PCA10040 DK (Credit: Nordic Semi)

More information about the board can be found at the nRF52 DK website [1]. The Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter [2] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.

Hardware

nRF52 DK has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 32 MHz.

Supported Features

The nrf52_pca10040 board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface Controller Driver/Component
NVIC on-chip nested vectored interrupt controller
RTC on-chip system clock
UART on-chip serial port
GPIO on-chip gpio
FLASH on-chip flash
RADIO on-chip Bluetooth
RTT on-chip console

Other hardware features are not supported by the Zephyr kernel. See nRF52 DK website [1] and Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter [2] for a complete list of nRF52 Development Kit board hardware features.

Connections and IOs

LED

  • LED1 (green) = P0.17
  • LED2 (green) = P0.18
  • LED3 (green) = P0.19
  • LED4 (green) = P0.20
  • LD5 (red/green) = OB LED 1/2

Push buttons

  • BUTTON1 = SW1 = P0.13
  • BUTTON2 = SW2 = P0.14
  • BUTTON3 = SW3 = P0.15
  • BUTTON4 = SW4 = P0.16
  • BOOT = SW5 = boot/reset

External Connectors

J-Link Prog Connector

PIN # Signal Name
1 VDD
2 IMCU_TMSS
3 GND
4 IMCU_TCKS
5 V5V
6 IMCU_TDOS
7 Cut off
8 IMCU_TDIS
9 Cut off
10 IMCU_RESET

Debug IN

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 VDD N/A
2 SWDIO SWDIO
3 GND N/A
4 SWDCLK SWDCLK
5 GND N/A
6 P0.18 P0.18 / TRACEDATA[0] / SWO
7 Cut off N/A
8 Cut off N/A
9 GND N/A
10 P0.21 P0.21 / RESET

Debug OUT

PIN # Signal Name
1 EXT_VTG
2 EXT_SWDIO
3 GND
4 EXT_SWDCLK
5 GND
6 EXT_SWO
7 Cut off
8 Cut off
9 EXT_GND_DETECT
10 EXT_RESET

Shield Debug and Current measurement

PIN # Signal Name
1 VDD_nRF
2 VDD
3 SH_VTG
4 SH_SWDIO
5 SH_SWDCLK
6 SH_SWO
7 SH_RESET
8 SH_GND_DETECT

Auxiliary

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 P0.00 P0.00 / XL1
2 P0.01 P0.01 / XL2
3 P0.21 P0.21 / RESET
4 P0.05_C P0.05 / AIN3
5 P0.06_C P0.06
6 P0.07_C P0.07
7 P0.08_C P0.08
8 P0.09 P0.09 / NFC1
9 P0.10 P0.10 / NFC2

Arduino Headers

P1/P7 Power

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 VDD N/A
2 VDD N/A
3 RESET P0.21 / RESET
4 VDD N/A
5 V5V N/A
6 GND N/A
7 GND N/A
8 VIN N/A

P2/P8 Analog in

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 A0 P0.03 / AIN1
2 A1 P0.04 / AIN2
3 A2 P0.28 / AIN4
4 A3 P0.29 / AIN5
5 A4 P0.30 / AIN6
6 A5 P0.31 / AIN7

P3/P9 Digital I/O

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 D0 (RX) P0.11
2 D1 (TX) P0.12
3 D2 P0.13
4 D3 P0.14 / TRACEDATA[3]
5 D4 P0.15 / TRACEDATA[2]
6 D5 P0.16 / TRACEDATA[1]
7 D6 P0.17
8 D7 P0.18 / TRACEDATA[3] / SWO

P4/P10 Digital I/O

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 D8 P0.19
2 D9 P0.20 / TRACECLK
3 D10 (SS) P0.22
4 D11 (MOSI) P0.23
5 D12 (MISO) P0.24
6 D13 (SCK) P0.25
7 GND N/A
8 AREF P0.02 / AIN0
9 SDA P0.26
10 SCL P0.27

P5/P11

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 D12 (MISO) P0.24
2 V5V N/A
3 D13 (SCK) P0.25
4 D11 (MOSI) P0.23
5 RESET N/A
6 N/A N/A

Programming and Debugging

Flashing

Follow the instructions in the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to install and configure all the necessary software.

This tutorial uses the sample application shell $ZEPHYR_BASE/samples/subsys/shell/shell, and uses the information that can be found in Flashing.

  1. To build the Zephyr kernel, enter:

    $ cd $ZEPHYR_BASE
$ make -C samples/subsys/shell/shell BOARD=nrf52_pca10040

  2. Connect the micro-USB cable to the nRF52 DK and to your computer.

  3. Erase the flash memory in the nRF52832:

    $ nrfjprog --eraseall -f nrf52

  4. Flash the application using the nrfjprog tool:

    $ nrfjprog --program outdir/zephyr.hex -f nrf52

  5. Run your favorite terminal program to listen for output.

    $ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200

    Replace <tty_device> with the port where the board nRF52 DK can be found. For example, under Linux, /dev/ttyACM0.

    The -b option sets baudrate ignoring the value from config.

  6. Press the Reset button and you should see the output of shell application in your terminal.

Debugging

Refer to the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to learn about debugging Nordic boards with a Segger IC.

Testing the LEDs and buttons in the nRF52 DK

There are 2 samples that allow you to test that the buttons (switches) and LEDs on the board are working properly with Zephyr:

samples/basic/blinky
samples/basic/button

You can build and flash the examples to make sure Zephyr is running correctly on your board. The button and LED definitions can be found in boards/arm/nrf52_pca10040/board.h.