Alif Ensemble E8 Development Kit
Overview
The Alif Ensemble E8 Development Kit is a single-board development platform that can be configured to operate with the E4, E6, or E8 series devices in the Alif Ensemble family.
The Ensemble family of devices can contain up to two Cortex-M55 cores available as two separate CPU clusters.
RTSS-HP (High Performance): Cortex-M55 running at up to 400 MHz
RTSS-HE (High Efficiency): Cortex-M55 running at up to 160 MHz
To build for the above cores, use the following board targets (for Ensemble E8 SOC AE822FA0E5597LS0):
ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_hpensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_he
More information about the board can be found at the Ensemble E8 DevKit Product Page [1].
Hardware
The Ensemble E8 Development Kit provides different hardware components including:
64 MB Octal SPI PSRAM
128 MB Octal SPI Flash
Micro SD card slot
High-Speed USB Device interface
High-Speed USB Host interface
USB-to-UART bridge for programming and debug
10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet
ICM-42670: Accelerometer, gyroscope and temperature sensor
BMI323: Accelerometer, gyroscope, and temperature sensor
WM8904 I2S Codec
I2S/PDM digital microphones
5-position joystick
Reset push-button
Multicolor LEDs
GPIO headers for I/O expansion
CSI/parallel camera sensor interfaces
DSI/parallel display panel interfaces
click module interface
JTAG debug connector
Supported Features
The ensemble_e8_dk 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.
ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_he target
Type |
Location |
Description |
Compatible |
|---|---|---|---|
CPU |
on-chip |
ARM Cortex-M55 CPU1 |
|
Clock control |
on-chip |
Generic fixed-rate clock provider3 |
|
on-chip |
Alif Semiconductor clock controller1 |
||
Interrupt controller |
on-chip |
ARMv8.1-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1 |
|
MMU / MPU |
on-chip |
ARMv8.1-M MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1 |
|
MTD |
on-board |
Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1 |
|
Pin control |
on-chip |
Alif Semiconductor pin controller1 |
|
Serial controller |
on-chip |
||
Timer |
on-chip |
ARMv8.1-M System Tick1 |
ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_hp target
Type |
Location |
Description |
Compatible |
|---|---|---|---|
CPU |
on-chip |
ARM Cortex-M55 CPU1 |
|
Clock control |
on-chip |
Generic fixed-rate clock provider3 |
|
on-chip |
Alif Semiconductor clock controller1 |
||
Interrupt controller |
on-chip |
ARMv8.1-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1 |
|
MMU / MPU |
on-chip |
ARMv8.1-M MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1 |
|
MTD |
on-board |
Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1 |
|
Pin control |
on-chip |
Alif Semiconductor pin controller1 |
|
Serial controller |
on-chip |
||
Timer |
on-chip |
ARMv8.1-M System Tick1 |
Programming and Debugging
The ensemble_e8_dk board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.
| flash | debug | attach | rtt | debugserver | reset | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| jlink | ✅ (default) | ✅ (default) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Configuring a Console
Connect a USB cable from your PC to the USB-to-UART bridge connector, 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
The default UART consoles are:
RTSS-HP: UART4
RTSS-HE: UART2
Flashing
Alif Ensemble E8 Development Kit can be programmed using the Alif Security Toolkit (SETOOLS). Refer to the Ensemble E8 DevKit Product Page [1] for detailed instructions on using SETOOLS to program the board.
Alternatively, the board can be flashed using a SEGGER J-Link debug probe with
west flash. Connect the board to your host computer using the J-Link debug
interface. The sample application Hello World is used for
this example.
Building and flashing for the High Performance core (RTSS-HP):
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_hp samples/hello_world
west flash
On the serial terminal, you should see the following message:
Hello World! ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_hp
Building and flashing for the High Efficiency core (RTSS-HE):
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_he samples/hello_world
west flash
On the serial terminal, you should see the following message:
Hello World! ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_he
Debugging
You can debug an application using west debug:
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b ensemble_e8_dk/ae822fa0e5597ls0/rtss_hp samples/hello_world
west debug
This will start a GDB server and connect to the target.