NUCODE NU40

Overview

The NUCODE NU40 is a development kit based on the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 ARM Cortex-M4F SoC. It features an onboard UF2 bootloader (Adafruit nRF52 fork) enabling drag-and-drop firmware flashing via USB, as well as support for BLE 5.4, IEEE 802.15.4 (Thread/Zigbee), and USB 2.0 Full Speed.

More information about the board can be found at the NUCODE NU40 website [1].

Hardware

The nucode_nu40/nrf52840 board target has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 32 MHz.

Supported Features

The nucode_nu40 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.

Connections and IOs

LEDs

  • LED0 = P0.13 (active high)

  • LED1 = P0.14 (active high)

  • LED2 = P0.15 (active high)

  • LED3 = P0.16 (active high)

Push Buttons

  • BUTTON0 = SW0 = P0.11 (active low, pull-up)

  • BUTTON1 = SW1 = P0.12 (active low, pull-up)

  • BUTTON2 = SW2 = P0.24 (active low, pull-up)

  • BUTTON3 = SW3 = P0.25 (active low, pull-up)

UART

  • UART0: TX = P0.6, RX = P0.8, RTS = P0.5, CTS = P0.7

  • UART1: TX = P1.2, RX = P1.1

I2C

  • I2C0 (Arduino): SDA = P0.26, SCL = P0.27

  • I2C1: SDA = P0.30, SCL = P0.31

SPI

  • SPI1: SCK = P0.31, MOSI = P0.30, MISO = P1.8

  • SPI3 (Arduino): SCK = P1.15, MOSI = P1.13, MISO = P1.14

Programming and Debugging

The nucode_nu40 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

Applications for the nucode_nu40/nrf52840 board configuration can be built in the usual way (see Building an Application for more details).

Flashing

The board supports the following programming options:

  1. Using the built-in UF2 bootloader

  2. Using an external debug probe

Option 1: Using the Built-In UF2 Bootloader

The board is factory-programmed with a UF2 bootloader (Adafruit nRF52 fork, maintained by chcbaram). With this option, the board enumerates as a USB mass-storage device when in bootloader mode.

  1. Enter bootloader mode by double-tapping the RESET button (or holding BUTTON0 while connecting USB). The board mounts as BARAM-NU40.

  2. Build the sample application:

    # From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b nucode_nu40/nrf52840 samples/hello_world

  3. Copy the generated zephyr.uf2 file to the BARAM-NU40 drive:

    cp build/zephyr/zephyr.uf2 /run/media/$USER/BARAM-NU40/

    The board resets automatically and runs the new firmware.

Option 2: Using an External Debug Probe

The board can also be flashed and debugged using a J-Link or other compatible debug probe connected to the SWD pads.

west flash

Debugging

Refer to the Run an Application page for more details on debugging.

References