SAM4S Xplained

Overview

The SAM4S Xplained evaluation kit is a development platform to evaluate the Atmel SAM4S series microcontrollers.

Hardware

ATSAM4S16C ARM Cortex-M4 Processor
12 MHz crystal oscillator
internal 32.768 kHz crystal oscillator
IS66WV51216DALL 8 Mb SRAM
Micro-AB USB device
Micro-AB USB debug interface supporting SEGGER OB and Virtual COM Port and Data
One reset and one user pushbutton
2 yellow user LEDs
IC pads for external flash chip

Supported Features

The sam4s_xplained 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.

`sam4s_xplained/sam4s16c` target

Type	Location	Description	Compatible
CPU	on-chip	ARM Cortex-M4 CPU1	`arm,cortex-m4`
ADC	on-chip	Atmel SAM family ADC1	`atmel,sam-adc`
Clock control	on-chip	Atmel Power Management Controller (PMC)1	`atmel,sam-pmc`
Counter	on-chip	Atmel SAM Timer Counter (TC) node2	`atmel,sam-tc`
DAC	on-chip	Atmel SAM family DAC1	`atmel,sam-dac`
Flash controller	on-chip	Atmel SAM Enhanced Embedded Flash Controller (EEFC)1	`atmel,sam-flash-controller`
GPIO & Headers	on-chip	SAM GPIO Port3	`atmel,sam-gpio`
GPIO & Headers	on-board	GPIO pins exposed on Atmel Xplained headers4	`atmel-xplained-header`
Hardware information	on-chip	ATMEL SAM Reset controller1	`atmel,sam-rstc`
I2C	on-chip	Atmel SAM Family I2C (TWI)1 1	`atmel,sam-i2c-twi`
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`
Memory controller	on-chip	Atmel Static Memory Controller (SMC)1	`atmel,sam-smc`
MMU / MPU	on-chip	ARMv7-M Memory Protection Unit (MPU)1	`arm,armv7m-mpu`
MTD	on-chip	This binding describes the Atmel SAM flash area layout1	`atmel,sam-flash`
Pin control	on-chip	Atmel SAM Pinctrl Container1	`atmel,sam-pinctrl`
Power management	on-chip	Atmel SAM SUPC (Supply-Controller) controller1	`atmel,sam-supc`
PWM	on-chip	Atmel SAM PWM1	`atmel,sam-pwm`
RTC	on-chip	Atmel SAM family RTC device1	`atmel,sam-rtc`
Serial controller	on-chip	SAM family UART2	`atmel,sam-uart`
Serial controller	on-chip	Atmel SAM family USART2	`atmel,sam-usart`
SPI	on-chip	Atmel SAM SPI controller1	`atmel,sam-spi`
SRAM	on-chip	Generic on-chip SRAM description1	`mmio-sram`
Timer	on-chip	ARMv7-M System Tick1	`arm,armv7m-systick`
Watchdog	on-chip	ATMEL SAM0 watchdog1	`atmel,sam-watchdog`

Connections and IOs

Download the SAM4S Xplained Design Files [2] for more information. It has full schematic and gerbers files.

System Clock

The SAM4S MCU is configured to use the 12 MHz internal oscillator on the board with the on-chip PLL to generate an 84 MHz system clock.

Serial Port

The ATSAM4S16C MCU has 2 UARTs and 2 USARTs. One of the UARTs (UART0) is connected to the Segger J-Link OB chip (the AT91SAM3U4 is programmed to be Segger J-Link OB). Segger J-Link OB brings the UART out as a virtual COM port. The section flashing uses the UART from the Segger USB debug connection.

Programming and Debugging

The SAM4S Xplained board comes with Segger J-Link OB. This provides a debug interface to the SAM4S16C chip. You can use Ozone or JLink to communicate with the SAM4S16C.

Flashing

For flash the board Zephyr provides two paths. One uses the default JLink tool and the second one uses SAM Boot Assistant (SAM-BA).

Using JLink

Download JLink from the Segger JLink Downloads Page [1]. Go to the section “J-Link Software and Documentation Pack” and install the “J-Link Software and Documentation pack for Linux”. The application JLinkExe needs to be accessible from your path.
Connect the SAM4S Xplained board to your host computer using the USB debug port. Then build and flash the Hello World application.
```
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b sam4s_xplained samples/hello_world
west flash
```

Using SAM-BA bootloader

Close the J25 jumper on the SAM4S Xplained board. Power on the board for 10s.
Open the J25 jumper.
Connect the SAM4S Xplained board to your host computer using the SoC USB port. Then build and flash the Hello World application.
```
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b sam4s_xplained samples/hello_world
```
```
$ west flash -r bossac
```

Visualizing the message

Run your favorite terminal program to listen for output. Under Linux the terminal should be /dev/ttyACM0. For example:
```
$ minicom -D /dev/ttyACM0 -o
```
The -o option tells minicom not to send the modem initialization string. Connection should be configured as follows:
- Speed: 115200
- Data: 8 bits
- Parity: None
- Stop bits: 1
Press reset button

You should see “Hello World! sam4s_xplained” in your terminal.

Debugging

You can debug an application in the usual way. Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b sam4s_xplained samples/hello_world
west debug