Feather nRF52840 (Express, Sense)

Overview

The Adafruit Feather nRF52840 provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 ARM Cortex-M4F CPU and the following devices:

  • ADC

  • CLOCK

  • FLASH

  • GPIO

  • I2C

  • MPU

  • NVIC

  • PWM

  • RADIO (Bluetooth Low Energy and 802.15.4)

  • RTC

  • Segger RTT (RTT Console)

  • SPI

  • UART

  • USB

  • WDT

Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express

Hardware

  • nRF52840 ARM Cortex-M4F processor at 64 MHz

  • 1 MB flash memory and 256 KB of SRAM

  • Battery connector and charger for 3.7 V lithium polymer batteries

  • Charging indicator LED

  • 2 User LEDs

  • 1 NeoPixel LED

  • Reset button

  • SWD connector (Express only)

  • SWD solder pads on bottom of PCB (Sense only)

  • LSM6DS33 Accel/Gyro (Sense only)

  • LIS3MDL magnetometer (Sense only)

  • APDS9960 Proximity, Light, Color, and Gesture Sensor (Sense only)

  • MP34DT01-M PDM Microphone sound sensor (Sense only)

  • SHT3X Humidity sensor (Sense only)

  • BMP280 temperature and barometric pressure/altitude (Sense only)

Supported Features

The adafruit_feather_nrf52840 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.
adafruit_feather_nrf52840
/

Type

Location

Description

Compatible

CPU

on-chip

ARM Cortex-M4F CPU1

arm,cortex-m4f

ADC

on-chip

Nordic Semiconductor nRF family SAADC node1

nordic,nrf-saadc

ARM architecture

on-chip

Nordic UICR (User Information Configuration Registers)1

nordic,nrf-uicr

on-chip

Nordic EGU (Event Generator Unit)6

nordic,nrf-egu

on-chip

Nordic nRF family ACL (Access Control List)1

nordic,nrf-acl

on-chip

Nordic nRF family MWU (Memory Watch Unit)1

nordic,nrf-mwu

Audio

on-chip

Nordic PDM (Pulse Density Modulation interface)1

nordic,nrf-pdm

Clock control

on-chip

Nordic nRF clock control node1

nordic,nrf-clock

Comparator

on-chip

Nordic nRF COMP (analog COMParator)1

nordic,nrf-comp

Counter

on-chip

Nordic nRF timer node5

nordic,nrf-timer

Cryptographic accelerator

on-chip

Nordic ECB (AES electronic codebook mode encryption)1

nordic,nrf-ecb

on-chip

Nordic nRF family CCM (AES CCM mode encryption)1

nordic,nrf-ccm

on-chip

ARM TrustZone CryptoCell 3101

arm,cryptocell-310

Debug

on-chip

ARMv7 instrumentation trace macrocell1

arm,armv7m-itm

Flash controller

on-chip

Nordic NVMC (Non-Volatile Memory Controller)1

nordic,nrf52-flash-controller

on-chip

Properties defining the interface for the Nordic QSPI peripheral1

nordic,nrf-qspi

GPIO & Headers

on-chip

NRF5 GPIOTE1

nordic,nrf-gpiote

on-chip

NRF5 GPIO2

nordic,nrf-gpio

on-board

GPIO pins exposed on Adafruit Feather headers1

adafruit-feather-header

I2C

on-chip

Nordic nRF family TWI (TWI master)1

nordic,nrf-twi

on-chip

Nordic nRF family TWIM (TWI master with EasyDMA)1

nordic,nrf-twim

I2S

on-chip

Nordic I2S (Inter-IC sound interface)1

nordic,nrf-i2s

IEEE 802.15.4

on-chip

Nordic nRF IEEE 802.15.4 node1

nordic,nrf-ieee802154

IIO

on-board

Description for a voltage divider, with optional ability to measure resistance of the upper leg1

voltage-divider

Input

on-board

Group of GPIO-bound input keys1

gpio-keys

Interrupt controller

on-chip

ARMv7-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1

arm,v7m-nvic

LED

on-board

Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1

gpio-leds

Miscellaneous

on-chip

Nordic FICR (Factory Information Configuration Registers)1

nordic,nrf-ficr

on-chip

Nordic nRF family PPI (Programmable Peripheral Interconnect)1

nordic,nrf-ppi

MTD

on-chip

Flash node1

soc-nv-flash

on-chip

Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1

fixed-partitions

on-board

QSPI NOR flash supporting the JEDEC CFI interface1

nordic,qspi-nor

Networking

on-chip

Nordic nRF family RADIO peripheral1

nordic,nrf-radio

on-chip

Nordic nRF family NFCT (Near Field Communication Tag)1

nordic,nrf-nfct

Pin control

on-chip

The nRF pin controller is a singleton node responsible for controlling pin function selection and pin properties1

nordic,nrf-pinctrl

Power management

on-chip

Nordic nRF power control node1

nordic,nrf-power

PWM

on-chip

nRF PWM4

nordic,nrf-pwm

on-chip

nRFx S/W PWM1

nordic,nrf-sw-pwm

Regulator

on-chip

Nordic nRF5X regulator (fixed stage of the core supply)1

nordic,nrf5x-regulator

on-chip

Nordic nRF52X regulator (high voltage stage of the main supply)1

nordic,nrf52x-regulator-hv

Retained memory

on-chip

Nordic GPREGRET (General Purpose Register Retention) device2

nordic,nrf-gpregret

RNG

on-chip

Nordic nRF family RNG (Random Number Generator)1

nordic,nrf-rng

RTC

on-chip

Nordic nRF RTC (Real-Time Counter)3

nordic,nrf-rtc

Sensors

on-chip

Nordic nRF family TEMP node1

nordic,nrf-temp

on-chip

Nordic nRF quadrature decoder (QDEC) node1

nordic,nrf-qdec

Serial controller

on-chip

Nordic nRF family UART1

nordic,nrf-uart

on-chip

Nordic nRF family UARTE (UART with EasyDMA)1

nordic,nrf-uarte

SPI

on-chip

Nordic nRF family SPIM (SPI master with EasyDMA)3

nordic,nrf-spim

on-chip

Nordic nRF family SPI (SPI master)1

nordic,nrf-spi

SRAM

on-chip

Generic on-chip SRAM description1

mmio-sram

Timer

on-chip

ARMv7-M System Tick1

arm,armv7m-systick

USB

on-chip

Nordic nRF52 USB device controller1

nordic,nrf-usbd

Watchdog

on-chip

Nordic nRF family WDT (Watchdog Timer)1

nordic,nrf-wdt

Connections and IOs

The Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express Learn site [1] has detailed information about the board including pinouts (Express) [2] and the schematic (Express) [3].

LED

  • LED0 (red) = P1.15 (Express)

  • LED0 (red) = P1.9 (Sense)

  • LED1 (blue) = P1.10

Push buttons

  • SWITCH = P1.02

  • RESET = P0.18

Programming and Debugging

Flashing

Flashing Zephyr onto both the Feather nRF52840 Express and Sense is possible using the SWD headers. Only the Express board has an SWD connector however.

Both the Feather nRF52840 Express and Sense ship with the Adafruit nRF52 Bootloader [7] which supports flashing using UF2 [8]. This allows easy flashing of new images, but does not support debugging the device.

  1. Build the Zephyr kernel and the Blinky sample application.

west build -b adafruit_feather_nrf52840 samples/basic/blinky
  1. If using UF2, connect the board to your host computer using USB.

  2. Tap the reset button twice quickly to enter bootloader mode. A mass storage device named FTHR840BOOT for (Express) or FTHRSNSBOOT (Sense) should appear on the host. Ensure this is mounted.

  3. Flash the image.

west build -b adafruit_feather_nrf52840 samples/basic/blinky
west flash
  1. You should see the red LED blink.

References