RA8M1 Evaluation Kit

Board Overview

RA8M1 Evaluation Kit

Name:

ek_ra8m1

Vendor:

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Architecture:

arm

SoC:

r7fa8m1ahecbd

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Overview

The EK-RA8M1 is an Evaluation Kit for Renesas RA8M1 MCU Group which is the first 32-bits MCUs based on new Arm Cortex-M85. The kit offer multiple external interface and peripherals set optimized on board allows user to seamlessly evaluate the features of the RA8M1 MCU and develop embedded system application in various field.

The key features of the EK-RA8M1 board are categorized in three groups as follow:

MCU Native Pin Access

• 480MHz Arm Cortex-M85 based RA8M1 MCU in 224 pins, BGA package

• Native pin acces througgh 2 x 50-pin, and 2 x 40-pin male headers

• MCU current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement

• Multiple clock sources - RA8M1 MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 20.000MHz and 32,768 Hz refeence clocks. Additional low precision clocks are available internal to the RA8M1 MCU

System Control and Ecosystem Access

• USB Full Speed Host and Device (micro-AB connector)

• Four 5V input sources

  • USB (Debug, Full Speed, High Speed)

  • External power supply (using surface mount clamp test points and power input vias)

• Three Debug modes

  • Debug on-board (SWD)

  • Debug in (ETM, SWD and JTAG)

  • Debug out (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

  • Two Seeed Grove system (I2C/I3C) connectors

  • One SparkFun Qwiic connector

  • Two Digilent Pmod (SPI, UART and I2C/I3C) connectors

  • Arduino (Uno R3) connector

  • MikroElektronika mikroBUS connector

• MCU boot configuration jumper

Special Feature Access

• Ethernet (RJ45 RMII interface)

• USB High Speed Host and Device (micro-AB connector)

• 512 Mb (64 MB) External Octo-SPI Flash (present in the MCU Native Pin Access area of the EK-RA8M1 board)

• CAN FD (3-pin header)

Hardware

Detailed Hardware features for the RA8M1 MCU group can be found at RA8M1 Group User’s Manual Hardware

RA8M1 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Detailed Hardware features for the EK-RA8M1 MCU can be found at EK-RA8M1 - User’s Manual

Supported Features

The ek_ra8m1 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_ra8m1/r7fa8m1ahecbd target

Type	Location	Description	Compatible
CPU	on-chip	ARM Cortex-M85 CPU1	arm,cortex-m85
ADC	on-chip	Renesas RA ADC node1 1	renesas,ra-adc
CAN	on-chip	Renesas RA CANFD controller global1	renesas,ra-canfd-global
	on-chip	Renesas RA CANFD controller1 1	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 1	renesas,ra-cgc-pll
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit PLL Clock out line3 3	renesas,ra-cgc-pll-out
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Control node pclk block1	renesas,ra-cgc-pclk-block
	on-chip	Renesas RA Clock Control Peripheral Clock12 5	renesas,ra-cgc-pclk
	on-chip	Renesas RA External Bus Clock1	renesas,ra-cgc-busclk
Comparator	on-chip	Renesas RA ACMPHS (High-Speed Analog COMParator) Global1	renesas,ra-acmphs-global
	on-chip	Renesas RA ACMPHS (High-Speed Analog COMParator) Controller2	renesas,ra-acmphs
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 1	renesas,ra-dac
Ethernet	on-chip	Renesas RA Ethernet1	renesas,ra-ethernet
	on-board	Generic MII PHY1	ethernet-phy
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 Port10 2	renesas,ra-gpio-ioport
	on-board	GPIO pins exposed on Mikro BUS headers1	mikro-bus
	on-board	GPIO pins exposed on a Digilent Pmod interface2	digilent,pmod
I2C	on-chip	Renesas RA I2C Master controller2	renesas,ra-iic
	on-chip	Renesas RA SCI-B I2C controller6	renesas,ra-i2c-sci-b
Input	on-board	Group of GPIO-bound input keys1	gpio-keys
Interrupt controller	on-chip	ARMv8.1-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1	arm,v8.1m-nvic
LED	on-board	Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1	gpio-leds
MDIO	on-chip	Renesas RA External MDIO controller1	renesas,ra-mdio
Miscellaneous	on-chip	Renesas RA SCI controller4 2	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	ARMv8.1-M MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1	arm,armv8.1m-mpu
MTD	on-chip	Flash memory binding of Renesas RA family2	renesas,ra-nv-flash
	on-board	Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1	fixed-partitions
PHY	on-chip	This binding is to be used by all the usb transceivers which are built-in with USB IP1	usb-nop-xceiv
	on-chip	Renesas RA USBHS internal PHY controller1	renesas,ra-usbphyc
	on-board	Simple GPIO controlled CAN transceiver1	can-transceiver-gpio
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 13	renesas,ra-pwm
RNG	on-chip	Renesas RA RSIP-E51A TRNG1	renesas,ra-rsip-e51a-trng
SDHC	on-chip	Renesas RA SDHC2	renesas,ra-sdhc
Serial controller	on-chip	Renesas RA SCI_B UART controller4 2	renesas,ra8-uart-sci-b
SPI	on-chip	Renesas RA8 SPI_B controller1 1	renesas,ra8-spi-b
SRAM	on-chip	Generic on-chip SRAM description1	mmio-sram
Timer	on-chip	ARMv8.1-M System Tick1	arm,armv8.1m-systick
USB	on-chip	Renesas RA USB full-speed controller1	renesas,ra-usbfs
	on-chip	Renesas RA USB device controller1 1	renesas,ra-udc
	on-chip	Renesas RA USB high-speed controller1	renesas,ra-usbhs
Watchdog	on-chip	Renesas RA Watchdog (wdt)1	renesas,ra-wdt

Note

• For using Ethernet module on EK-RA8M1, remove jumper J61 to enable Ethernet B

• For using SDHC driver on EK-RA8M1, remove jumper J61 to use with channel 0

Programming and Debugging

Applications for the ek_ra8m1 board 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.

Note: Only support from SDK v0.16.6 in which GCC for Cortex Arm-M85 was available. To build for EK-RA8M1 user need to get and install GNU Arm Embedded toolchain from https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/tag/v0.16.6

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA8M1 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-RA8M1 - 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: R7FA8M1AH

• 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

• EK-RA8M1 Website

• RA8M1 MCU group Website