RA4C1 Evaluation Kit

Overview

The EK-RA4C1, an Evaluation Kit for the RA4 Series, enables users to seamlessly evaluate the features of the RA4C1 MCU group. The users can use rich on-board features along with their choice of popular ecosystems add-ons to bring their big ideas to life.

The key features of the EK-RA4C1 board are categorized in three groups (consistent with the architecture of the kit) as follows:

Renesas RA4C1 Microcontroller Group

R7FA4C1BD3CFP MCU (referred to as RA MCU)
80 MHz, Arm® Cortex®-M33 core
512 KB Code Flash, 96 KB SRAM
100 pins, LQFP package
Native pin access through 3 x 26-pin headers (not populated)
Tamper Detection embedded into J4
Segment LCD Board Interface
MCU current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement
Multiple clock sources – RA MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 8.000 MHz and 32,768 Hz reference clocks. Additional low-precision clocks are available internal to the RA MCU

System Control and Ecosystem Access

Two 5 V input sources
- USB (Debug)
- External Power Supply 2-pin header (not populated)
Three Debug modes
- Debug on-board (SWD)
- Debug in (SWD)
- Debug out (SWD, SWO and JTAG)
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
- Two Seeed Grove® system (I2C/Analog) connectors (not populated)
- SparkFun® Qwiic® connector (not populated)
- Two Digilent PmodTM (SPI, UART and I2C) connectors
- Arduino™ (UNO R3) connector
- MikroElektronikaTM mikroBUS connector (not populated)
MCU boot configuration jumper
Low Voltage Mode voltage input and operation

Special Feature Access - 32 MB (256 Mb) External Quad-SPI Flash - CAN-FD (3-pin header) - External Battery Connector - Configuration Switch

Hardware

Detailed hardware features can be found at: - RA4C1 MCU: RA4C1 Group User’s Manual Hardware [2] - EK-RA4C1 board: EK-RA4C1 - User’s Manual [1]

Supported Features

The ek_ra4c1 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.

`ek_ra4c1/r7fa4c1bd3cfp` target

Type	Location	Description	Compatible
CPU	on-chip	ARM Cortex-M33 CPU1	`arm,cortex-m33`
ADC	on-chip	Renesas RA ADC node1	`renesas,ra-adc`
CAN	on-chip	Renesas RA CANFD controller global1	`renesas,ra-canfd-global`
CAN	on-chip	Renesas RA CANFD controller1	`renesas,ra-canfd`
Clock control	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit external clock configuration1	`renesas,ra-cgc-external-clock`
	on-chip	Generic fixed-rate clock provider3	`fixed-clock`
	on-chip	Renesas RA Sub-Clock1	`renesas,ra-cgc-subclk`
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit PLL Clock1	`renesas,ra-cgc-pll`
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit UTASEL Clock1	`renesas,ra-cgc-utasel`
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Control node pclk block1	`renesas,ra-cgc-pclk-block`
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Control Peripheral Clock7 3	`renesas,ra-cgc-pclk`
Counter	on-chip	Renesas RA AGT as Counter2	`renesas,ra-agt-counter`
Flash controller	on-chip	Renesas RA family flash high-performance controller1	`renesas,ra-flash-hp-controller`
GPIO & Headers	on-chip	Renesas RA GPIO I/O Port5 4	`renesas,ra-gpio-ioport`
I2C	on-chip	Renesas RA I2C Master controller1 1	`renesas,ra-iic`
Input	on-board	Group of GPIO-bound input keys1	`gpio-keys`
Interrupt controller	on-chip	ARMv8-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1	`arm,v8m-nvic`
LED	on-board	Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1	`gpio-leds`
Miscellaneous	on-chip	Renesas RA Event Link Controller1	`renesas,ra-elc`
	on-chip	Renesas RA SCI controller1 5	`renesas,ra-sci`
	on-chip	Renesas RA AGT2	`renesas,ra-agt`
	on-chip	Renesas RA External Interrupt2 14	`renesas,ra-external-interrupt`
MMU / MPU	on-chip	ARMv8-M MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1	`arm,armv8m-mpu`
MTD	on-chip	Flash memory binding for Renesas RA Code flash region1	`renesas,ra-nv-code-flash`
	on-chip	Flash memory binding for Renesas RA Data flash region1	`renesas,ra-nv-data-flash`
	on-board	Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1	`fixed-partitions`
Pin control	on-chip	Renesas RA Pin Controller1	`renesas,ra-pinctrl-pfs`
PWM	on-chip	Renesas RA Pulse Width Modulation1 5	`renesas,ra-pwm`
Reserved memory	on-chip	Renesas Option-Setting Memory9	`renesas,ofs-memory`
Serial controller	on-chip	Renesas RA SCI UART controller1 5	`renesas,ra-sci-uart`
SPI	on-chip	Renesas RA SPI controller1 2	`renesas,ra-spi`
SRAM	on-chip	Generic on-chip SRAM1	`mmio-sram`
Timer	on-chip	ARMv8-M System Tick1	`arm,armv8m-systick`
Watchdog	on-chip	Renesas RA Watchdog (wdt)1	`renesas,ra-wdt`

Programming and Debugging

The ek_ra4c1 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

	flash	debug	debugserver	attach	rtt
jlink	✅ (default)	✅ (default)	✅	✅	✅
pyocd	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA4C1 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-RA4C1 - User’s Manual [1]. Note: SW4-4 needs to be set to OFF

Execute west command
west flash -r jlink