MicroMod board Processor

SparkFun MicroMod board Processor

Overview

MicroMod is a solderless, modular interface ecosystem that uses the M.2 standard to mix and match your choice of processor with specific Function Boards or stand-alone Carrier Boards. A MicroMod processor board is approximately 22x22 mm, and can insert into any MicroMod carrier board. More information can be found in the Micromod specification website [1].

All Micromod board targets support the following hardware features:

  • USB host mode compliant to 2.0 specification

  • GPIO

  • 2 UART

  • 2 I2C

  • 2 SPI

  • 2 ADC

  • 2 PWM

  • Watchdog Timer (WDT)

Sparkfun Micromod board

Sparkfun Micromod board (Credit: https://www.sparkfun.com)

Zephyr currently supports the following SoCs:

  • micromod/nrf52840

SparkFun MicroMod nRF52840 board Processor

Overview

The micromod/nrf52840 board target features the nRF52840 SoC from Nordic Semiconductor, the SparkFun MicroMod nRF52840 Processor offers a powerful combination of ARM Cortex-M4 CPU and 2.4 GHz Bluetooth transceiver in the MicroMod form-factor. More information can be found in the Micromod nRF52840 guide [3].

Hardware

The micromod/nrf52840 board target supports the following hardware features:

  • ARM Cortex-M4 CPU with floating point unit (FPU)

    • 1MB internal Flash

    • 256kB internal RAM

  • Integrated 2.4GHz radio with support for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and ieee802154

  • USB 2.0 full speed (12 Mbps) controller

  • QSPI with 128Mb flash memory

  • ARM TrustZone Cryptocell 310 security subsystem

  • USB host mode compliant to 2.0 specification

  • GPIO

  • 2 UART

  • 2 I2C

  • 2 SPI

  • 2 ADC

  • 2 PWM

  • Watchdog Timer (WDT)

Supported Features

The micromod 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.
micromod/nrf52840 target

Type

Location

Description

Compatible

CPU

on-chip

ARM Cortex-M4F CPU1

arm,cortex-m4f

ADC

on-chip

Nordic Semiconductor nRF family SAADC node1

nordic,nrf-saadc

ARM architecture

on-chip

Nordic UICR (User Information Configuration Registers)1

nordic,nrf-uicr

on-chip

Nordic EGU (Event Generator Unit)6

nordic,nrf-egu

on-chip

Nordic nRF family ACL (Access Control List)1

nordic,nrf-acl

on-chip

Nordic nRF family MWU (Memory Watch Unit)1

nordic,nrf-mwu

Audio

on-chip

Nordic PDM (Pulse Density Modulation interface)1

nordic,nrf-pdm

Clock control

on-chip

Nordic nRF clock control node1

nordic,nrf-clock

on-chip

Nordic nRF high-frequency crystal oscillator (nRF52 series)1

nordic,nrf52-hfxo

Comparator

on-chip

Nordic nRF COMP (analog COMParator)1

nordic,nrf-comp

Counter

on-chip

Nordic nRF timer node5

nordic,nrf-timer

Cryptographic accelerator

on-chip

Nordic ECB (AES electronic codebook mode encryption)1

nordic,nrf-ecb

on-chip

Nordic nRF family CCM (AES CCM mode encryption)1

nordic,nrf-ccm

on-chip

ARM TrustZone CryptoCell 3101

arm,cryptocell-310

Debug

on-chip

ARMv7 instrumentation trace macrocell1

arm,armv7m-itm

Flash controller

on-chip

Nordic NVMC (Non-Volatile Memory Controller)1

nordic,nrf52-flash-controller

on-chip

Properties defining the interface for the Nordic QSPI peripheral1

nordic,nrf-qspi

GPIO & Headers

on-chip

NRF5 GPIOTE1

nordic,nrf-gpiote

on-chip

NRF5 GPIO2

nordic,nrf-gpio

on-board

GPIO pins exposed on micromod headers1

sparkfun,micromod-gpio

I2C

on-chip

Nordic nRF family TWI (TWI master)2

nordic,nrf-twi

I2S

on-chip

Nordic I2S (Inter-IC sound interface)1

nordic,nrf-i2s

IEEE 802.15.4

on-chip

Nordic nRF IEEE 802.15.4 node1

nordic,nrf-ieee802154

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

Nordic FICR (Factory Information Configuration Registers)1

nordic,nrf-ficr

on-chip

Nordic nRF family PPI (Programmable Peripheral Interconnect)1

nordic,nrf-ppi

MTD

on-chip

Flash node1

soc-nv-flash

on-board

Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1

fixed-partitions

on-board

QSPI NOR flash supporting the JEDEC CFI interface1

nordic,qspi-nor

Networking

on-chip

Nordic nRF family RADIO peripheral1

nordic,nrf-radio

on-chip

Nordic nRF family NFCT (Near Field Communication Tag)1

nordic,nrf-nfct

Pin control

on-chip

Nordic nRF family Pin Controller1

nordic,nrf-pinctrl

Power management

on-chip

Nordic nRF power control node1

nordic,nrf-power

PWM

on-chip

nRF PWM4

nordic,nrf-pwm

on-chip

nRFx S/W PWM1

nordic,nrf-sw-pwm

Regulator

on-chip

Nordic nRF5X regulator (fixed stage of the core supply)1

nordic,nrf5x-regulator

on-chip

Nordic nRF52X regulator (high voltage stage of the main supply)1

nordic,nrf52x-regulator-hv

Retained memory

on-chip

Nordic GPREGRET (General Purpose Register Retention) device2

nordic,nrf-gpregret

RNG

on-chip

Nordic nRF family RNG (Random Number Generator)1

nordic,nrf-rng

RTC

on-chip

Nordic nRF RTC (Real-Time Counter)3

nordic,nrf-rtc

Sensors

on-chip

Nordic nRF family TEMP node1

nordic,nrf-temp

on-chip

Nordic nRF quadrature decoder (QDEC) node1

nordic,nrf-qdec

Serial controller

on-chip

Nordic nRF family UARTE (UART with EasyDMA)2

nordic,nrf-uarte

SPI

on-chip

Nordic nRF family SPIM (SPI master with EasyDMA)3

nordic,nrf-spim

on-chip

Nordic nRF family SPI (SPI master)1

nordic,nrf-spi

SRAM

on-chip

Generic on-chip SRAM1

mmio-sram

Timer

on-chip

ARMv7-M System Tick1

arm,armv7m-systick

USB

on-chip

Nordic nRF52 USB device controller1

nordic,nrf-usbd

Watchdog

on-chip

Nordic nRF family WDT (Watchdog Timer)1

nordic,nrf-wdt

Connections and IOs

LED
  • Led0 (blue) = P0.13

Micromod header
  • micromod_1_uart = uart0

  • micromod_2_uart = uart1

  • micromod_0_i2c = i2c0

  • micromod_1_i2c = i2c1

  • micromod_0_spi = spi2

  • micromod_header compatible with sparkfun,micromod-gpio

Programming and Debugging

Applications for the micromod/nrf52840 board target 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

Follow the instructions in the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to install and configure all the necessary software. Further information can be found in Flashing. Then build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

The flashing tool will depend on the carrier used along with the board. In the case of Sparkfun asset tracking carrier [2], it is possible to use the SWD interface along with a J-Link.

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

First, run your favorite terminal program to listen for output.

$ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200

Replace <tty_device> with the port where the board nRF52840 DK can be found. For example, under Linux, /dev/ttyACM0.

Then build and flash the application in the usual way.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b micromod/nrf52840 samples/hello_world
west flash

Debugging

Refer to the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link page to learn about debugging Nordic boards with a Segger IC.

In case of using a Nordic Segger Jlink, it is possible to configure the app to use Segger Real Time Transfer (RTT) for debugging. In this case, build your app with the RTT snippet.

Testing the on-board LED

There is a sample that allow you to test the LED on the board is working properly with Zephyr:

You can build and flash the example to make sure Zephyr is running correctly on your board. The button and LED definitions can be found in boards/sparkfun/micromod/micromod_nrf52840.dts.

Testing the 128Mb qspi memory flash

The micromod/nrf52840 board target has a built-in NOR flash memory connected to the qspi interface. It can be tested with the samples/drivers/jesd216 app.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b micromod/nrf52840 samples/drivers/jesd216
west flash

References