nRF52-PCA10040

Overview

Zephyr applications use the nrf52_pca10040 board configuration to run on the nRF52 Development Kit (PCA10040) hardware. It provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 ARM Cortex-M4F CPU and the following devices:

  • NVIC
  • SYSTICK
  • UART
  • GPIO

More information about the board can be found at the nRF52 DK website [1]. The Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter [2] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.

Supported Features

The nrf52_pca10040 board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface Controller Driver/Component
NVIC on-chip nested vectored interrupt controller
SYSTICK on-chip system clock
UART on-chip serial port
GPIO on-chip gpio

Other hardware features are not supported by the Zephyr kernel. See nRF52 DK website [1] and Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter [2] for a complete list of nRF52 Development Kit board hardware features.

Pin Names

LED

  • LED1 (green) = P0.17
  • LED2 (green) = P0.18
  • LED3 (green) = P0.19
  • LED4 (green) = P0.20
  • LD5 (red/green) = OB LED 1/2

Push buttons

  • BUTTON1 = SW1 = P0.13
  • BUTTON2 = SW2 = P0.14
  • BUTTON3 = SW3 = P0.15
  • BUTTON4 = SW4 = P0.16
  • BOOT = SW5 = boot/reset

External Connectors

Debug IN

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 VDD N/A
2 SWDIO SWDIO
3 GND N/A
4 SWDCLK SWDCLK
5 GND N/A
6 P0.18 P0.18 / TRACEDATA[0] / SWO
7 Cut off N/A
8 Cut off N/A
9 GND N/A
10 P0.21 P0.21 / RESET

Debug OUT

PIN # Signal Name
1 EXT_VTG
2 EXT_SWDIO
3 GND
4 EXT_SWDCLK
5 GND
6 EXT_SWO
7 Cut off
8 Cut off
9 EXT_GND_DETECT
10 EXT_RESET

Shield Debug and Current measurement

PIN # Signal Name
1 VDD_nRF
2 VDD
3 SH_VTG
4 SH_SWDIO
5 SH_SWDCLK
6 SH_SWO
7 SH_RESET
8 SH_GND_DETECT

Auxiliary

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 P0.00 P0.00 / XL1
2 P0.01 P0.01 / XL2
3 P0.21 P0.21 / RESET
4 P0.05_C P0.05 / AIN3
5 P0.06_C P0.06
6 P0.07_C P0.07
7 P0.08_C P0.08
8 P0.09 P0.09 / NFC1
9 P0.10 P0.10 / NFC2

Arduino Headers

P1/P7 Power

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
     
1 VDD N/A
2 VDD N/A
3 RESET P0.21 / RESET
4 VDD N/A
5 V5V N/A
6 GND N/A
7 GND N/A
8 VIN N/A

P2/P8 Analog in

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 A0 P0.03 / AIN1
2 A1 P0.04 / AIN2
3 A2 P0.28 / AIN4
4 A3 P0.29 / AIN5
5 A4 P0.30 / AIN6
6 A5 P0.31 / AIN7

P3/P9 Digital I/O

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 D0 (RX) P0.11
2 D1 (TX) P0.12
3 D2 P0.13
4 D3 P0.14 / TRACEDATA[3]
5 D4 P0.15 / TRACEDATA[2]
6 D5 P0.16 / TRACEDATA[1]
7 D6 P0.17
8 D7 P0.18 / TRACEDATA[3] / SWO

P4/P10 Digital I/O

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
1 D8 P0.19
2 D9 P0.20 / TRACECLK
3 D10 (SS) P0.22
4 D11 (MOSI) P0.23
5 D12 (MISO) P0.24
6 D13 (SCK) P0.25
7 GND N/A
8 AREF P0.02 / AIN0
9 SDA P0.26
10 SCL P0.27

P5/P11

PIN # Signal Name NRF52832 Functions
     
1 D12 (MISO) P0.24
2 V5V N/A
3 D13 (SCK) P0.25
4 D11 (MOSI) P0.23
5 RESET N/A
6 N/A N/A

System Clock

nRF52 DK has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 32 MHz.

Flashing Zephyr onto nRF52 DK

Flashing the Zephyr kernel onto nRF52 DK requires both the J-Link Software and documentation pack [3] and, the nrfjprog tool, which is part of the nRF5x Command Line Tools.

Installing the nRF5x Command Line Tools

To install the nRF5x Command Line Tools, follow the steps below:

  1. Download the appropriate package from the nRF52 DK website [1].
  2. Depending on your platform, unpack the tarball and copy the contents into a folder whithin your $PATH or run the installer.

Flashing an Application to nRF52 DK

This tutorial uses the sample application shell $ZEPHYR_BASE/samples/shell.

  1. To build the Zephyr kernel, enter:

    $ cd $ZEPHYR_BASE
    $ make -C samples/shell BOARD=nrf52_pca10040
    
  2. Connect the micro-USB cable to the nRF52 DK and to your computer.

  3. Erase the flash memory in the nRF52832:

    $ nrfjprog --eraseall -f nrf52
    
  4. Flash the application using the nrfjprog tool:

    $ nrfjprog --program outdir/zephyr.hex -f nrf52
    
  5. Run your favorite terminal program to listen for output.

    $ minicom -D <tty_device> -b 115200
    

    Replace <tty_device> with the port where the board nRF52 DK can be found. For example, under Linux, /dev/ttyACM0.

    The -b option sets baudrate ignoring the value from config.

  6. Press the Reset button and you should see the output of shell application in your terminal.