RA4M3 Evaluation Kit
Overview
The Renesas RA4M3 group of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) uses the high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M33 core with TrustZone. In concert with the secure crypto engine, it offers secure element functionality. The RA4M3 is built on a highly efficient 40nm process, built on FreeRTOS—and is expandable to use other RTOSes and middleware. The RA4M3 is suitable for IoT applications requiring vast communication options, future proof security, large embedded RAM, and low active power consumption down to 119µA/MHz running the CoreMark® algorithm from Flash.
The MCU in this series incorporates a high-performance Arm Cortex®-M33 core running up to 100 MHz with the following features:
MCU Native Pin Access - R7FA4M3AF3CFB - 100-pin LQFP package - 100 MHz Arm® Cortex®-M33 core - 1 MB Code Flash, 128 KB SRAM - 144 pins, LQFP package - Native pin access through 4 x 40-pin male headers - MCU and USB current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement - Multiple clock sources - RA MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 24.000 MHz and 32,768 Hz reference clock. Additional low-precision clocks are available internal to the RA MCU
System Control and Ecosystem Access - USB Full Speed Host and Device (micro AB connector) - Three 5 V input sources
USB (Debug, Full 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
2 Seeed Grove® system (I2C/Analog) connectors
SparkFun® Qwiic® connector
2 Digilent PmodTM (SPI and UART) connectors
ArduinoTM (Uno R3) connector
MikroElektronikaTM mikroBUS connector
MCU boot configuration jumper
Special Feature Access - 32 MB (256 Mb) External Quad-SPI Flash
EK-RA4M3 Board Functional Area Definitions (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)
Hardware
Detail Hardware feature for the RA4M3 MCU group can be found at RA4M3 Group User’s Manual Hardware
RA4M3 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)
Detail Hardware feature for the EK-RA4M3 MCU can be found at EK-RA4M3 - User’s Manual
Supported Features
The below features are currently supported on Zephyr OS for EK-RA4M3 board:
Interface |
Controller |
Driver/Component |
|---|---|---|
GPIO |
on-chip |
gpio |
MPU |
on-chip |
arch/arm |
NVIC |
on-chip |
arch/arm |
UART |
on-chip |
serial |
CLOCK |
on-chip |
clock control |
SPI |
on-chip |
spi |
COUNTER |
on-chip |
counter |
ADC |
on-chip |
adc |
PWM |
on-chip |
pwm |
Other hardware features are currently not supported by the port.
Programming and Debugging
Applications for the ek_ra4m3 board target configuration can be
built, flashed, and debugged in the usual way. See
Building an Application and Run an Application for more details on
building and running.
Flashing
Program can be flashed to EK-RA4M3 via the on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger. SEGGER J-link’s drivers are avaialbe at https://www.segger.com/downloads/jlink/
To flash the program to board
Connect to J-Link OB via USB port to host PC
Make sure J-Link OB jumper is in default configuration as describe in EK-RA4M3 - User’s Manual
Execute west command
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: R7FA4M3AD
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