micro:bit

Board Overview

micro:bit

Name:

bbc_microbit

Vendor:

BBC

Architecture:

arm

SoC:

nrf51822

Browse board sources

Overview

The Micro Bit (also referred to as BBC Micro Bit, stylized as micro:bit) is an ARM-based embedded system designed by the BBC for use in computer education in the UK.

The board is 4 cm × 5 cm and has an ARM Cortex-M0 processor, accelerometer and magnetometer sensors, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, a display consisting of 25 LEDs, two programmable buttons, and can be powered by either USB or an external battery pack. The device inputs and outputs are through five ring connectors that are part of the 23-pin edge connector.

More information about the board can be found at the microbit website [1].

Hardware

The micro:bit has the following physical features:

• 25 individually-programmable LEDs

• 2 programmable buttons

• Physical connection pins

• Light and temperature sensors

• Motion sensors (accelerometer and compass)

• Wireless Communication, via Radio and Bluetooth

• USB interface

Supported Features

The bbc_microbit 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.

bbc_microbit/nrf51822 target

Type	Location	Description	Compatible
CPU	on-chip	ARM Cortex-M0 CPU1	arm,cortex-m0
ADC	on-chip	nRF ADC node1	nordic,nrf-adc
ARM architecture	on-chip	Nordic UICR (User Information Configuration Registers)1	nordic,nrf-uicr
	on-chip	Nordic nRF family MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1	nordic,nrf-mpu
	on-chip	Nordic nRF family SWI (Software Interrupt)6	nordic,nrf-swi
Clock control	on-chip	Nordic nRF clock control node1	nordic,nrf-clock
Comparator	on-chip	Nordic nRF LPCOMP (analog Low-Power COMParator)1	nordic,nrf-lpcomp
Counter	on-chip	Nordic nRF timer node3	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
Display	on-board	Generic LED matrix driven by nRF SoC GPIOs1	nordic,nrf-led-matrix
Flash controller	on-chip	Nordic NVMC (Non-Volatile Memory Controller)1	nordic,nrf51-flash-controller
GPIO & Headers	on-chip	NRF5 GPIOTE1	nordic,nrf-gpiote
	on-chip	NRF5 GPIO1	nordic,nrf-gpio
	on-board	GPIO pins exposed on BBC MicroBit headers1	microbit,edge-connector
I2C	on-chip	Nordic nRF family TWI (TWI master)1 1	nordic,nrf-twi
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
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-board	Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1	fixed-partitions
Networking	on-chip	Nordic nRF family RADIO peripheral1	nordic,nrf-radio
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	nRFx S/W PWM1	nordic,nrf-sw-pwm
Retained memory	on-chip	Nordic GPREGRET (General Purpose Register Retention) device1	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)2	nordic,nrf-rtc
Sensors	on-board	FXOS8700 6-axis accelerometer/magnetometer sensor1	nxp,fxos8700
	on-board	STMicroelectronics LIS2MDL magnetometer accessed through I2C bus1	st,lis2mdl
	on-board	STMicroelectronics LIS2DH 3-axis accelerometer accessed through I2C bus1	st,lis2dh
	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
SPI	on-chip	Nordic nRF family SPI (SPI master)2	nordic,nrf-spi
SRAM	on-chip	Generic on-chip SRAM description1	mmio-sram
Watchdog	on-chip	Nordic nRF family WDT (Watchdog Timer)1	nordic,nrf-wdt

Programming and Debugging

Flashing

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

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

First, run your favorite terminal program to listen for output.

$ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200

Replace <tty_device> with the port where the board nRF51 DK can be found. For example, under Linux, /dev/ttyACM0.

Then build and flash the application in the usual way.

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

References

[1]

http://www.microbit.org/