RA4W1 Evaluation Kit

Overview

The Renesas RA4W1 is the first Bluetooth® 5.0 Low Energy fully compliant with 2Mbit High-Throughput (HT) and Long Range support in a single chip MCU of Renesas RA4 product series for IoT applications that require a high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M4 core at a very attractive price point. The RA4W1 MCU has full function support for Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy long-range and mesh networking, and provides excellent reception performance. RA4W1 is geared towards IoT application requiring Security, large embedded RAM and low power consumption.

MCU Native Pin Access

  • R7FA4W1AD2CNG

  • QFN-56 package

  • On-chip memory: 512-KB ROM, 96-KB RAM, 8-KB data flash memory

Power-supply voltage

  • USB connector: 5-V input

  • Power-supply IC: 5-V input, 3.3-V output

  • External power-supply header*1: 3.3-V input, 2 pins x 1

Main clock

  • Crystal oscillator (surface-mount technology (SMT)) for the main system clock

  • Crystal oscillator or ceramic resonator (lead type) for the main system clock

Sub-clock

  • Crystal oscillator (SMT) for the sub-clock

Bluetooth Low Energy

  • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) circuit x1

  • Range of frequency: 2402 to 2480 MHz

  • Maximum transmission output power: 4 dBm (in 4-dBm output mode)

  • Output variation: +2 dB

Push switches

  • Reset switch x 1

  • User switch x 1

LED

  • Power indicator: green x 1

  • User: green x 2

  • ACT LED: green x 1

Connectivity

  • Connector for an on-board emulator: USB Micro-B

  • Connector for a USB serial-conversion interface: USB Micro-B

  • Pmod™ connector: Angle type, 12 pins

  • Arduino™ UNO connectors

  • Emulator reset switch: DIP switch x 1

Hardware

Detailed Hardware features for the RA4W1 MCU group can be found at RA4W1 Group User’s Manual Hardware

RA4W1 MCU group feature

RA4W1 Block diagram (Credit: Renesas Electronics Corporation)

Detailed Hardware features for the EK-RA4W1 MCU can be found at EK-RA4W1 - User’s Manual

Supported Features

The ek_ra4w1 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 ek_ra4w1 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

Applications for the ek_ra4w1 board target 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.

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA4W1 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-RA4W1 - 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: R7FA4W1AD

  • 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