Advanced BLE Cell
Overview
The Contextual Electronics ABC (PCA10056) hardware provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 ARM Cortex-M4F CPU and the following devices:
CLOCK
FLASH
GPIO
I2C
MPU
NVIC
PWM
Segger RTT (RTT Console)
SPI
UART
Quectel BG95 Modem
More information about the board can be found at the ABC Board website [1]. The Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter [2] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.
Hardware
ABC board has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 32 MHz.
nRF52840 ARM Cortex-M4F processor at 64 MHz
1 MB flash memory and 256 KB of SRAM
SWD connector
Supported Features
The contextualelectronics_abc board supports the hardware features listed below.
- on-chip / on-board
- Feature integrated in the SoC / present on the board.
- 2 / 2
-
Number of instances that are enabled / disabled.
Click on the label to see the first instance of this feature in the board/SoC DTS files. -
vnd,foo -
Compatible string for the Devicetree binding matching the feature.
Click on the link to view the binding documentation.
contextualelectronics_abc/nrf52840 target
Type |
Location |
Description |
Compatible |
|---|---|---|---|
CPU |
on-chip |
ARM Cortex-M4F CPU1 |
|
ADC |
on-chip |
Nordic Semiconductor nRF family SAADC node1 |
|
ARM architecture |
on-chip |
Nordic UICR (User Information Configuration Registers)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic EGU (Event Generator Unit)6 |
||
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family ACL (Access Control List)1 |
||
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family MWU (Memory Watch Unit)1 |
||
Audio |
on-chip |
Nordic PDM (Pulse Density Modulation interface)1 |
|
Clock control |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF clock control node1 |
|
Comparator |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF COMP (analog COMParator)1 |
|
Counter |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF timer node5 |
|
Cryptographic accelerator |
on-chip |
Nordic ECB (AES electronic codebook mode encryption)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family CCM (AES CCM mode encryption)1 |
||
on-chip |
ARM TrustZone CryptoCell 3101 |
||
Debug |
on-chip |
ARMv7 instrumentation trace macrocell1 |
|
Flash controller |
on-chip |
Nordic NVMC (Non-Volatile Memory Controller)1 |
|
on-chip |
Properties defining the interface for the Nordic QSPI peripheral1 |
||
GPIO & Headers |
on-chip |
NRF5 GPIOTE1 |
|
on-chip |
NRF5 GPIO2 |
||
I2C |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family TWI (TWI master)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family TWIM (TWI master with EasyDMA)1 |
||
I2S |
on-chip |
Nordic I2S (Inter-IC sound interface)1 |
|
IEEE 802.15.4 |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF IEEE 802.15.4 node1 |
|
Interrupt controller |
on-chip |
ARMv7-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1 |
|
Miscellaneous |
on-chip |
Nordic FICR (Factory Information Configuration Registers)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family PPI (Programmable Peripheral Interconnect)1 |
||
Modem |
on-board |
quectel BG9x modem1 |
|
MTD |
on-chip |
Flash node1 |
|
on-chip |
Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1 |
||
Networking |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family RADIO peripheral1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family NFCT (Near Field Communication Tag)1 |
||
Pin control |
on-chip |
The nRF pin controller is a singleton node responsible for controlling pin function selection and pin properties1 |
|
Power management |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF power control node1 |
|
PWM |
on-chip |
nRF PWM4 |
|
on-chip |
nRFx S/W PWM1 |
||
Regulator |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF5X regulator (fixed stage of the core supply)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF52X regulator (high voltage stage of the main supply)1 |
||
Retained memory |
on-chip |
Nordic GPREGRET (General Purpose Register Retention) device2 |
|
RNG |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family RNG (Random Number Generator)1 |
|
RTC |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF RTC (Real-Time Counter)3 |
|
Sensors |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family TEMP node1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF quadrature decoder (QDEC) node1 |
||
Serial controller |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family UART1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family UARTE (UART with EasyDMA)1 |
||
SPI |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family SPIM (SPI master with EasyDMA)3 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family SPI (SPI master)1 |
||
SRAM |
on-chip |
Generic on-chip SRAM description1 |
|
Timer |
on-chip |
ARMv7-M System Tick1 |
|
USB |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF52 USB device controller1 |
|
Watchdog |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family WDT (Watchdog Timer)1 |
See ABC Board website [1] for more details on this board, and Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter [2] for a complete list of SoC features.
Programming and Debugging
Applications for the contextualelectronics_abc board configuration can be
built and flashed in the usual way (see Building an Application
and Run an Application for more details).
Flashing
Flashing Zephyr onto the contextualelectronics_abc board requires
an external programmer. The programmer is attached to the SWD header.
Build the Zephyr kernel and the Hello World sample application.
west build -b contextualelectronics_abc samples/hello_world
Flash the image.
west build -b contextualelectronics_abc samples/hello_world west flash
To see the output, run your favorite terminal program.
$ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200
Replace <tty_device> with the port where the ABC board
can be found. For example, under Linux, /dev/ttyACM0.
Debugging
Refer to the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to learn about debugging Nordic boards with a Segger IC.
Selecting the pins
Pins can be configured in the board pinctrl file. To see the available mappings, open the nRF52840 Product Specification [3], chapter 7 ‘Hardware and Layout’. In the table 7.1.1 ‘aQFN73 ball assignments’ select the pins marked ‘General purpose I/O’. Note that pins marked as ‘low frequency I/O only’ can only be used in under-10KHz applications. They are not suitable for 115200 speed of UART.