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nRF9160 DK

Overview

The nRF9160 DK (PCA10090) is a single-board development kit for evaluation and development on the nRF9160 SiP for LTE-M and NB-IoT. The nrf9160dk/nrf9160 board configuration provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 ARM Cortex-M33F CPU with ARMv8-M Security Extension and the following devices:

• ADC

• CLOCK

• FLASH

• GPIO

• I2C

• MPU

• NVIC

• PWM

• RTC

• Segger RTT (RTT Console)

• SPI

• UARTE

• WDT

• IDAU

nRF9160 DK (Credit: Nordic Semiconductor)

More information about the board can be found at the nRF9160 DK website [2]. nRF9160 Product Specification [5] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.

Hardware

nRF9160 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 nrf9160dk/nrf9160 board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface	Controller	Driver/Component
ADC	on-chip	adc
CLOCK	on-chip	clock_control
FLASH	on-chip	flash
GPIO	on-chip	gpio
I2C(M)	on-chip	i2c
MPU	on-chip	arch/arm
NVIC	on-chip	arch/arm
PWM	on-chip	pwm
RTC	on-chip	system clock
RTT	Segger	console
SPI(M/S)	on-chip	spi
SPU	on-chip	system protection
UARTE	on-chip	serial
WDT	on-chip	watchdog

Additional hardware in v0.14.0+

Starting from v0.14.0, additional hardware is available on the DK:

• External flash memory (MX25R6435F, 64 Mb)

• I/O expander (PCAL6408A) that can be used to interface LEDs, slide switches, and buttons

To use this additional hardware, specify the revision of the board that should be used when building your application (for more information, see Building for a board revision). For example, to build for nRF9160 DK v1.0.0:

Using west:

west build -b nrf9160dk/nrf9160@1.0.0

Using CMake and ninja:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=nrf9160dk/nrf9160@1.0.0 ..
ninja

Remember to also enable routing for this additional hardware in the firmware for nRF9160 DK - nRF52840 (see Board controller firmware).

Other hardware features have not been enabled yet for this board. See nRF9160 DK website [2] and nRF9160 Product Specification [5] for a complete list of nRF9160 DK board hardware features.

Connections and IOs

LED

• LED1 (green) = P0.2

• LED2 (green) = P0.3

• LED3 (green) = P0.4

• LED4 (green) = P0.5

Push buttons and Switches

• BUTTON1 = P0.6

• BUTTON2 = P0.7

• SWITCH1 = P0.8

• SWITCH2 = P0.9

• BOOT = SW5 = boot/reset

Security components

• Implementation Defined Attribution Unit (IDAU [1]). The IDAU is implemented with the System Protection Unit and is used to define secure and non-secure memory maps. By default, all of the memory space (Flash, SRAM, and peripheral address space) is defined to be secure accessible only.

• Secure boot.

Programming and Debugging

nrf9160dk/nrf9160 supports the Armv8m Security Extension, and by default boots in the Secure state.

Building Secure/Non-Secure Zephyr applications with Arm® TrustZone®

Applications on the nRF9160 may contain a Secure and a Non-Secure firmware image. The Secure image can be built using either Zephyr or Trusted Firmware M [3] (TF-M). Non-Secure firmware images are always built using Zephyr. The two alternatives are described below.

Note

By default the Secure image for nRF9160 is built using TF-M.

Building the Secure firmware using Zephyr

The process requires the following steps:

1. Build the Secure Zephyr application using -DBOARD=nrf9160dk/nrf9160 and CONFIG_TRUSTED_EXECUTION_SECURE=y in the application project configuration file.

2. Build the Non-Secure Zephyr application using -DBOARD=nrf9160dk/nrf9160/ns.

3. Merge the two binaries together.

Building the Secure firmware with TF-M

The process to build the Secure firmware image using TF-M and the Non-Secure firmware image using Zephyr requires the following action:

1. Build the Non-Secure Zephyr application using -DBOARD=nrf9160dk_nrf9160_ns. To invoke the building of TF-M the Zephyr build system requires the Kconfig option BUILD_WITH_TFM to be enabled, which is done by default when building Zephyr as a Non-Secure application. The Zephyr build system will perform the following steps automatically:

   • Build the Non-Secure firmware image as a regular Zephyr application

   • Build a TF-M (secure) firmware image

   • Merge the output binaries together

   • Optionally build a bootloader image (MCUboot)

Note

Depending on the TF-M configuration, an application DTS overlay may be required, to adjust the Non-Secure image Flash and SRAM starting address and sizes.

When building a Secure/Non-Secure application, the Secure application will have to set the IDAU (SPU) configuration to allow Non-Secure access to all CPU resources utilized by the Non-Secure application firmware. SPU configuration shall take place before jumping to the Non-Secure application.

Building a Secure only application

Build the Zephyr app in the usual way (see Building an Application and Run an Application), using -DBOARD=nrf9160dk/nrf9160.

Flashing

Follow the instructions in the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to install and configure all the necessary software. Further information can be found in Flashing. Then build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

First, run your favorite terminal program to listen for output.

$ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200

Replace <tty_device> with the port where the nRF9160 DK can be found. For example, under Linux, /dev/ttyACM0.

Then build and flash the application in the usual way.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b nrf9160dk/nrf9160 samples/hello_world
west flash

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 nRF9160 DK

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

• Blinky

• 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/nordic/nrf9160dk/nrf9160dk_nrf9160_common.dtsi.

nRF9160 DK - nRF52840

Overview

The nRF52840 SoC on the nRF9160 DK (PCA10090) hardware provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 ARM Cortex-M4F CPU and the following devices:

• CLOCK

• FLASH

• GPIO

• MPU

• NVIC

• PWM

• RADIO (Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4)

• RTC

• Segger RTT (RTT Console)

• UART

• WDT

The nRF52840 SoC does not have any connection to the any of the LEDs, buttons, switches, and Arduino pin headers on the nRF9160 DK board. It is, however, possible to route some of the pins of the nRF52840 SoC to the nRF9160 SiP.

More information about the board can be found at the Nordic Low power cellular IoT [4] website. nRF52840 Product Specification [6] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.

Hardware

The nRF9160 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 nrf9160dk/nrf52840 board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface	Controller	Driver/Component
CLOCK	on-chip	clock_control
FLASH	on-chip	flash
GPIO	on-chip	gpio
MPU	on-chip	arch/arm
NVIC	on-chip	arch/arm
PWM	on-chip	pwm
RADIO	on-chip	Bluetooth, ieee802154
RTC	on-chip	system clock
RTT	Segger	console
UART	on-chip	serial
WDT	on-chip	watchdog

Programming and Debugging

Applications for the nrf9160dk/nrf52840 board configuration can be built and flashed in the usual way (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

Make sure that the PROG/DEBUG switch on the DK is set to nRF52.

Flashing

Follow the instructions in the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to install and configure all the necessary software. Further information can be found in Flashing. Then build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

Remember to set the PROG/DEBUG switch on the DK to nRF52.

See the following example for the Hello World application.

First, run your favorite terminal program to listen for output.

$ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200

Replace <tty_device> with the port where the nRF52840 SoC is connected to. Usually, under Linux it will be /dev/ttyACM1. The /dev/ttyACM0 port is connected to the nRF9160 SiP on the board.

Then build and flash the application in the usual way.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b nrf9160dk/nrf52840 samples/hello_world
west flash

Debugging

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

Remember to set the PROG/DEBUG switch on the DK to nRF52.

Board controller firmware

The board controller firmware is a small snippet of code that takes care of routing specific pins of the nRF9160 SiP to different components on the DK, such as LEDs and buttons, UART interfaces (VCOMx) of the interface MCU, and specific nRF52840 SoC pins.

Note

In nRF9160 DK revisions earlier than v0.14.0, nRF9160 signals routed to other components on the DK are not simultaneously available on the DK connectors.

When compiling a project for nrf9160dk/nrf52840, the board controller firmware will be compiled and run automatically after the Kernel has been initialized.

By default, the board controller firmware will route the following:

nRF9160 pins	Routed to
P0.26, P0.27, P0.28, and P0.29	VCOM0
P0.01, P0.00, P0.15, and P0.14	VCOM2
P0.02	LED1
P0.03	LED2
P0.04	LED3
P0.05	LED4
P0.08	Switch 1
P0.09	Switch 2
P0.06	Button 1
P0.07	Button 2
P0.17, P0.18, and P0.19	Arduino pin headers
P0.21, P0.22, and P0.23	Trace interface
COEX0, COEX1, and COEX2	COEX interface

For a complete list of all the routing options available, see the nRF9160 DK board control section in the nRF9160 DK User Guide [7].

If you want to route some of the above pins differently or enable any of the other available routing options, enable or disable the devicetree node that represents the analog switch that provides the given routing.

The following devicetree nodes are defined for the analog switches present on the nRF9160 DK:

Devicetree node label	Analog switch name
vcom0_pins_routing	nRF91_UART1 (nRF91_APP1)
vcom2_pins_routing	nRF91_UART2 (nRF91_APP2)
led1_pin_routing	nRF91_LED1
led2_pin_routing	nRF91_LED2
led3_pin_routing	nRF91_LED3
led4_pin_routing	nRF91_LED4
switch1_pin_routing	nRF91_SWITCH1
switch2_pin_routing	nRF91_SWITCH2
button1_pin_routing	nRF91_BUTTON1
button2_pin_routing	nRF91_BUTTON2
nrf_interface_pins_0_2_routing	nRF_IF0-2_CTRL (nRF91_GPIO)
nrf_interface_pins_3_5_routing	nRF_IF3-5_CTRL (nRF91_TRACE)
nrf_interface_pins_6_8_routing	nRF_IF6-8_CTRL (nRF91_COEX)

When building for the DK revision 0.14.0 or later, you can use the following additional nodes (see Building for a board revision for information how to build for specific revisions of the board):

Devicetree node label	Analog switch name
nrf_interface_pin_9_routing	nRF_IF9_CTRL
io_expander_pins_routing	IO_EXP_EN
external_flash_pins_routing	EXT_MEM_CTRL

For example, if you want to enable the optional routing for the nRF9160 pins P0.17, P0.18, and P0.19 so that they are routed to nRF52840 pins P0.17, P0.20, and P0.15, respectively, add the following in the devicetree overlay in your application:

&nrf_interface_pins_0_2_routing {
        status = "okay";
};

And if you want to, for example, disable routing for the VCOM2 pins, add the following:

&vcom2_pins_routing {
        status = "disabled";
};

A few helper .dtsi files are provided in the directories boards/nordic/nrf9160dk/dts/nrf52840 and boards/nordic/nrf9160dk/dts/nrf9160. They can serve as examples of how to configure and use the above routings. You can also include them from respective devicetree overlay files in your applications to conveniently configure the signal routing between nRF9160 and nRF52840 on the nRF9160 DK. For example, to use uart1 on both these chips for communication between them, add the following line in the overlays for applications on both sides, nRF52840:

#include <nrf52840/nrf9160dk_uart1_on_if0_3.dtsi>

nRF9160:

#include <nrf9160/nrf9160dk_uart1_on_if0_3.dtsi>

References

[1]

https://developer.arm.com/docs/100690/latest/attribution-units-sau-and-idau

[2] (1,2)

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-Tools/Development-Kits/nRF9160-DK

[3]

https://www.trustedfirmware.org/projects/tf-m/

[4]

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-cellular-IoT

[5] (1,2)

https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ps_nrf9160/page/nRF9160_html5_keyfeatures.html

[6]

https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ps_nrf52840/page/keyfeatures_html5.html

[7]

https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ug_nrf9160_dk/page/UG/nrf91_DK/hw_description/nrf9160_board_controller.html