FRDM-MCXC444

Overview

FRDM-MCXC444 is a compact and scalable development board for rapid prototyping of MCX C444 MCU. It offers industry standard headers for easy access to the MCU’s I/Os, integrated open-standard serial interfaces and on-board MCU-Link debugger. The MCXC is a general purpose ultra-low-power MCU family, providing additional memory, communications and analog peripheral.

Hardware

MCXC444VLH Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller running at 48 MHz
64LQFP package
256 KB flash
32 KB SRAM
USB FS 2.0
2x low-power UART, 1x UART, 2x I2C, 2x SPI
FXLS8974CF accelerometer
Tri-color LED
On-board MCU-Link debugger with CMSIS-DAP
Arduino Header, mikroBUS, Pmod

For more information about the MCXC444 SoC and FRDM-MCXC444 board, see these references:

Supported Features

The frdm_mcxc444 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.

frdm_mcxc444

/

mcxc444

Type	Location	Description	Compatible
CPU	on-chip	ARM Cortex-M0+ CPU1	`arm,cortex-m0+`
ADC	on-chip	Kinetis ADC161	`nxp,kinetis-adc16`
Clock control	on-chip	NXP Kinetis Multipurpose Clock generator (MCG) IP node1	`nxp,kinetis-mcg`
	on-chip	Kinetis System Integration Module (SIM) IP node1	`nxp,kinetis-sim`
	on-chip	Generic fixed factor clock provider2	`fixed-factor-clock`
	on-chip	NXP MCXC oscillator1	`nxp,mcxc-osc`
Counter	on-chip	NXP LPTMR1	`nxp,lptmr`
	on-chip	NXP Periodic Interrupt Timer (PIT)1	`nxp,pit`
	on-chip	Child node for the Periodic Interrupt Timer node, intended for an individual timer channel2	`nxp,pit-channel`
Flash controller	on-chip	NXP Kinetis Flash Memory Module A (FTFA)1	`nxp,kinetis-ftfa`
GPIO & Headers	on-chip	Kinetis GPIO5	`nxp,kinetis-gpio`
I2C	on-chip	Kinetis I2C1 1	`nxp,kinetis-i2c`
Input	on-board	Group of GPIO-bound input keys1	`gpio-keys`
Interrupt controller	on-chip	ARMv6-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller) controller1	`arm,v6m-nvic`
LED	on-board	Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1	`gpio-leds`
LED	on-board	Group of PWM-controlled LEDs1	`pwm-leds`
MTD	on-chip	Flash node1	`soc-nv-flash`
Pin control	on-chip	NXP PORT Pin Controller5	`nxp,port-pinmux`
Pin control	on-chip	NXP PORT Pin Controller1	`nxp,port-pinctrl`
PWM	on-chip	MCUX Timer/PWM Module (TPM)1 2	`nxp,kinetis-tpm`
RTC	on-chip	NXP Real Time Clock (RTC)1	`nxp,rtc`
Sensors	on-board	FXLS8974 3-axis accelerometer sensor1	`nxp,fxls8974`
Sensors	on-chip	NXP Kinetis temperature sensor1	`nxp,kinetis-temperature`
Serial controller	on-chip	NXP LPUART1 1	`nxp,lpuart`
Serial controller	on-chip	Kinetis UART1	`nxp,kinetis-uart`
SRAM	on-chip	Generic on-chip SRAM description1	`mmio-sram`
Timer	on-chip	ARMv6-M System Tick1	`arm,armv6m-systick`
USB	on-chip	NPX Kinetis USBFSOTG Controller in device mode1	`nxp,kinetis-usbd`

Connections and IOs

The MCXC444 SoC has five pairs of pinmux/gpio controllers (PORTA/GPIOA, PORTB/GPIOB, PORTC/GPIOC, PORTD/GPIOD, and PORTE/GPIOE) for the FRDM-MCXC444 board.

Name	Function	Usage
PTE20	ADC	ADC0 channel 1
PTE31	GPIO	Red LED
PTD5	GPIO	Green LED
PTE29	GPIO	Blue LED
PTA1	LPUART0_RX	UART Console
PTA2	LPUART0_TX	UART Console
PTA20	RESET	RESET Button SW1
PTC3	GPIO	User button SW2
PTA4	GPIO	User button SW3
PTE25	I2C0_SDA	I2C accelerometer
PTE24	I2C0_SCL	I2C accelerometer

System Clock

The MCXC444 SoC is configured to use HIRC running at 48 MHz as a system clock source.

Serial Port

The MCXC444 LPUART0 is used for the console.

Programming and Debugging

Build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

Configuring a Debug Probe

A debug probe is used for both flashing and debugging the board. This board is configured by default to use the MCU-Link CMSIS-DAP Onboard Debug Probe.

Using LinkServer

Linkserver is the default runner for this board, and supports the factory default MCU-Link firmware. Follow the instructions in MCU-Link CMSIS-DAP Onboard Debug Probe to reprogram the default MCU-Link firmware. This only needs to be done if the default onboard debug circuit firmware was changed. To put the board in DFU mode to program the firmware, short jumper JP2.

Using J-Link

There are two options. The onboard debug circuit can be updated with Segger J-Link firmware by following the instructions in MCU-Link JLink Onboard Debug Probe. To be able to program the firmware, you need to put the board in DFU mode by shortening the jumper JP1. The second option is to attach a J-Link External Debug Probe to the 10-pin SWD connector (J10) of the board. Additionally, the jumper JP4 must be shortened. For both options use the -r jlink option with west to use the jlink runner.

west flash -r jlink

Configuring a Console

Connect a USB cable from your PC to J13, and use the serial terminal of your choice (minicom, putty, etc.) with the following settings:

Speed: 115200
Data: 8 bits
Parity: None
Stop bits: 1

Flashing

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b frdm_mcxc444 samples/hello_world
west flash

Open a serial terminal, reset the board (press the SW1 button), and you should see the following message in the terminal:

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.6.0-4475-gfa5bd8bb098e ***
Hello World! frdm_mcxc444/mcxc444

Debugging