RA4M1 Evaluation Kit

Overview

The MCU integrates multiple series of software- and pin-compatible Arm®-based 32-bit cores that share a common set of Renesas peripherals to facilitate design scalability and efficient platform-based product development. The MCU provides an optimal combination of low-power, high-performance Arm Cortex®-M4 core running up to 48 MHz with the following features:

Renesas RA4M1 Microcontroller Group

  • R7FA4M1AB3CFP

  • 100-pin LQFP package

  • 48 MHz Arm® Cortex®-M4 core with Floating Point Unit (FPU)

  • 32 KB SRAM

  • 256 KB code flash memory

  • 8 KB data flash memory

Connectivity

  • A Device USB connector for the Main MCU

  • SEGGER J-Link® On-Board (OB) interface for debugging and programming of the RA4M1 MCU. A 10pin JTAG/SWD interface is also provided for connecting optional external debuggers and programmers.

  • Two PMOD connectors, allowing use of appropriate PMOD compliant peripheral plug-in modules for rapid prototyping

  • Pin headers for access to power and signals for the Main MCU

Multiple clock sources

  • Main MCU oscillator crystals, providing precision 12.000 MHz and 32,768 Hz external reference clocks

  • Additional low-precision clocks are available internal to the Main MCU

General purpose I/O ports

  • One jumper to allow measuring of Main MCU current

  • Copper jumpers on PCB bottom side for configuration and access to selected MCU signals

Operating voltage

  • External 5 V input through the Debug USB connector supplies the on-board power regulator to power logic and interfaces on the board. External 5 V or 3.3 V may be also supplied through alternate locations on the board.

  • A two-color board status LED indicating availability of regulated power and connection status of the J-Link interface.

  • A red User LED, controlled by the Main MCU firmware

  • A User Push-Button switch, User Capacitive Touch Button sensor, and an optional User Potentiometer, all of which are controlled by the Main MCU firmware

  • MCU reset push-button switch

  • MCU boot configuration jumper

Hardware

Detailed hardware features can be found at:

Supported Features

The ek_ra4m1 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_ra4m1/r7fa4m1ab3cfp target

Type

Location

Description

Compatible

CPU

on-chip

ARM Cortex-M4 CPU1

arm,cortex-m4

ADC

on-chip

Renesas RA ADC node1

renesas,ra-adc

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 Control node pclk block1

renesas,ra-cgc-pclk-block

on-chip

Renesas RA Clock Control Peripheral Clock6 2

renesas,ra-cgc-pclk

Counter

on-chip

Renesas RA AGT as Counter2

renesas,ra-agt-counter

DAC

on-chip

Renesas RA DAC Controller Global1

renesas,ra-dac-global

on-chip

Renesas RA DAC Controller1

renesas,ra-dac

GPIO & Headers

on-chip

Renesas RA GPIO I/O Port3 7

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

ARMv7-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1

arm,v7m-nvic

LED

on-board

Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1

gpio-leds

Miscellaneous

on-chip

Renesas RA SCI controller1 3

renesas,ra-sci

on-chip

Renesas RA AGT2

renesas,ra-agt

on-chip

Renesas RA External Interrupt1 14

renesas,ra-external-interrupt

MMU / MPU

on-chip

ARMv7-M Memory Protection Unit (MPU)1

arm,armv7m-mpu

MTD

on-chip

Flash node1

soc-nv-flash

PHY

on-chip

This binding is to be used by all the usb transceivers which are built-in with USB IP1

usb-nop-xceiv

Pin control

on-chip

The Renesas RA pin controller is a node responsible for controlling pin function selection and pin properties, such as routing a SCI0 RXD to P6101

renesas,ra-pinctrl-pfs

PWM

on-chip

Renesas RA Pulse Width Modulation1 7

renesas,ra-pwm

RNG

on-chip

Renesas RA SCE5 TRNG1

renesas,ra-sce5-rng

Serial controller

on-chip

Renesas RA SCI UART controller1 3

renesas,ra-sci-uart

SPI

on-chip

Renesas RA SPI controller1 1

renesas,ra-spi

SRAM

on-chip

Generic on-chip SRAM description1

mmio-sram

Timer

on-chip

ARMv7-M System Tick1

arm,armv7m-systick

USB

on-chip

Renesas RA USB full-speed controller1

renesas,ra-usbfs

on-chip

Renesas RA USB device controller1

renesas,ra-udc

Watchdog

on-chip

Renesas RA Watchdog (wdt)1

renesas,ra-wdt

Programming and Debugging

Applications for the ek_ra4m1 board 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-RA4M1 via the on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger. SEGGER J-link’s drivers are available 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-RA4M1 - 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: R7FA4M1AB

  • 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