RA4E2 Evaluation Kit

Overview

The RA4E2 Group delivers up to 100 MHz of CPU performance using an Arm® Cortex®-M33 core with 128 KB of code flash memory, 4 KB of data flash memory, and 40 KB of SRAM. RA4E2 MCUs offer high-performance and optimized peripheral functions along with the smallest package options, including space-saving 36-pin BGA and 32-pin QFN packages. The RA4E2 Group offers a wide set of peripherals, including USB Full Speed, CANFD, I3C, and ADC.

The MCU in this series incorporates a high-performance Arm Cortex®-M33 core running up to 100 MHz with the following features:

MCU Native Pin Access - R7FA4E2B93CFM MCU (referred to as RA MCU) - 100 MHz, Arm® Cortex®-M33 core - 128 kB Code Flash, 40 kB SRAM - 64 pins, LQFP package - Native pin access through 2 x 14-pin and 1 x 40-pin male headers - MCU current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement - Multiple clock sources - RA MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 20.000 MHz and 32,768 Hz reference clock. Additional low-precision clocks are available internal to the RA MCU

System Control and Ecosystem Access - USB Full Speed Device (micro-AB connector) - Three 5 V input sources

  • USB (Debug, Full Speed)

  • External power supply (using surface mount clamp test points and J31 through holes)

  • Three Debug modes

    • Debug on-board (SWD)

    • Debug in (SWD)

    • Debug out (JTAG, SWD)

  • 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

    • 2 Seeed Grove® system (I3C/Analog) connectors

    • SparkFun® Qwiic® connector

    • 2 Digilent PmodTM (SPI and UART) connectors

    • ArduinoTM (Uno R3) connector

    • MikroElektronikaTM mikroBUS connector

  • MCU boot configuration jumper

Special Feature Access

  • CAN FD (3-pin header)

RA4E2 Evaluation Kit

EK-RA4E2 Board Functional Area Definitions (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Hardware

Detail Hardware feature for the RA4E2 MCU group can be found at RA4E2 Group User’s Manual Hardware

RA4E2 MCU group feature

RA4E2 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Detail Hardware feature for the EK-RA4E2 MCU can be found at EK-RA4E2 - User’s Manual

Supported Features

The below features are currently supported on Zephyr OS for EK-RA4E2 board:

Interface

Controller

Driver/Component

GPIO

on-chip

gpio

MPU

on-chip

arch/arm

NVIC

on-chip

arch/arm

UART

on-chip

serial

CLOCK

on-chip

clock control

SPI

on-chip

spi

ADC

on-chip

adc

PWM

on-chip

pwm

Other hardware features are currently not supported by the port.

Programming and Debugging

Applications for the ek_ra4e2 board target configuration can be built, flashed, and debugged in the usual way. See Building an Application and Run an Application for more details on building and running.

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA4E2 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

  1. Connect to J-Link OB via USB port to host PC

  2. Make sure J-Link OB jumper is in default configuration as describe in EK-RA4E2 - User’s Manual

  3. Execute west command

    west flash -r jlink

Debugging

You can use Segger Ozone (Segger Ozone Download) for a visual debug interface

Once downloaded and installed, open Segger Ozone and configure the debug project like so:

  • Target Device: R7FA4E2B9

  • Target Interface: SWD

  • Target Interface Speed: 4 MHz

  • Host Interface: USB

  • Program File: <path/to/your/build/zephyr.elf>

Note: It’s verified that we can debug OK on Segger Ozone v3.30d so please use this or later version of Segger Ozone

References