Renesas Starter Kit for RX140

Overview

The Renesas Starter Kit for RX140 is an evaluation and starter kit for developers who are new to the RX140 MCU family (Program Flash 256KB, RAM 64KB, Pin Count 80-pin). The kit includes an LCD display module and an on-chip debugging emulator

MCU Native Pin Access

The RSK-RX140 includes:

  • 48-MHz, 32-bit RX140 MCU (R5F51406BDFN, 80-pin LFQFP package)

  • Direct MCU pin access through standard headers for easy peripheral integration

  • On-board 8 MHz crystal, 32.768 kHz sub-clock, and internal oscillators

  • Multiple low power consumption modes

System Control and Debugging

  • USB Mini-B connector for serial communication (via on-board RL78/G1C USB-to-Serial MCU)

  • Power source options:

    • USB-powered

    • External DC supply (5V input jack)

    • Debugger supply (E2 Lite)

  • Debugging support:

    • Via E2 Lite debugger (14-pin connector)

  • User LEDs and buttons:

    • Four User LEDs (green, orange, red x2)

    • Power LED (green)

    • One Reset button, three User buttons

    • One potentiometer (connected to ADC input)

  • Ecosystem expansions:

    • Two Digilent Pmod connectors (LCD and Spare)

    • On-board 2Kbit I2C EEPROM

Special Feature Access

  • Capacitive touch sensing (slider x1, buttons x2)

  • CAN and LIN transceivers

  • IEC60730 compliance support

  • Security functions (built-in Trusted Secure IP)

Hardware

Detailed hardware features can be found at:

Supported Features

The rsk_rx140 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.

Programming and Debugging

The rsk_rx140 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

Applications for the rsk_rx140 board can be built, flashed, and debugged using standard Zephyr workflows. Refer to Building an Application and Run an Application for more details.

Note: Currently, the RX140 is built and programmed using the Renesas GCC RX toolchain. Please follow the steps below to program it onto the board:

export ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=cross-compile
export CROSS_COMPILE=<Path/to/your/toolchain>/bin/rx-elf-

  • Build the Blinky Sample for RSK-RX140

cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
west build -p always -b rsk_rx140 samples/basic/blinky

Flashing

The program can be flashed to RSK-RX140 using the E2 Lite debugger by connecting the board’s 14-pin debug connector to the host PC. Here’s an example for building and flashing the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b rsk_rx140 samples/hello_world
west flash

Debugging

You can use Renesas Debug extension on Visual Studio Code for a visual debug interface. The configuration for launch.json is as below.

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
      {
          "type": "renesas-hardware",
          "request": "launch",
          "name": "RX140 Renesas Debugging E2lite",
          "target": {
              "deviceFamily": "RX",
              "device": "R5F51406",
              "debuggerType": "E2LITE"
              "serverParameters": [
                  "-uUseFine=", "1",
                  "-w=", "0",
              ],
          }
      }
  ]
}

References