RA4W1 Evaluation Kit

Overview

The Renesas RA4W1 is the first Bluetooth® 5.0 Low Energy fully compliant with 2Mbit High-Throughput (HT) and Long Range support in a single chip MCU of Renesas RA4 product series for IoT applications that require a high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M4 core at a very attractive price point. The RA4W1 MCU has full function support for Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy long-range and mesh networking, and provides excellent reception performance. RA4W1 is geared towards IoT application requiring Security, large embedded RAM and low power consumption.

MCU Native Pin Access

R7FA4W1AD2CNG
QFN-56 package
On-chip memory: 512-KB ROM, 96-KB RAM, 8-KB data flash memory

Power-supply voltage

USB connector: 5-V input
Power-supply IC: 5-V input, 3.3-V output
External power-supply header*1: 3.3-V input, 2 pins x 1

Main clock

Crystal oscillator (surface-mount technology (SMT)) for the main system clock
Crystal oscillator or ceramic resonator (lead type) for the main system clock

Sub-clock

Crystal oscillator (SMT) for the sub-clock

Bluetooth Low Energy

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) circuit x1
Range of frequency: 2402 to 2480 MHz
Maximum transmission output power: 4 dBm (in 4-dBm output mode)
Output variation: +2 dB

Push switches

Reset switch x 1
User switch x 1

LED

Power indicator: green x 1
User: green x 2
ACT LED: green x 1

Connectivity

Connector for an on-board emulator: USB Micro-B
Connector for a USB serial-conversion interface: USB Micro-B
Pmod™ connector: Angle type, 12 pins
Arduino™ UNO connectors
Emulator reset switch: DIP switch x 1

Hardware

Detailed Hardware features for the RA4W1 MCU group can be found at RA4W1 Group User’s Manual Hardware

RA4W1 MCU group feature — RA4W1 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Detailed Hardware features for the EK-RA4W1 MCU can be found at EK-RA4W1 - User’s Manual

Supported Features

The ek_ra4w1 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_ra4w1/r7fa4w1ad2cng` 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 Clock7 1	`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`
DAC	on-chip	Renesas RA DAC Controller1	`renesas,ra-dac`
GPIO & Headers	on-chip	Renesas RA GPIO I/O Port2 5	`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 10	`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 6	`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`
USB	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_ra4w1 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-RA4W1 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

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-RA4W1 - User’s Manual
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: R7FA4W1AD
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