EFR32BG29 Bluetooth LE 4 dBm DCDC Boost WLCSP (BG29-RB4420A)

Overview

The EFR32BG29 Bluetooth LE +4 dBm DCDC Boost WLCSP Radio Board is a plug-in board for the Wireless Starter Kit Mainboard (BRD4001A) and the Wireless Pro Kit Mainboard (BRD4002A). It is a complete reference design for the DCDC Boost mode EFR32xG29 Wireless SoC, a matching network and a PCB antenna for 4 dBm output power in the 2.4 GHz band. The EFR32 on the radio board is powered in boost DC-DC configuration from an on-board LDO for improved efficiency and to demonstrate single-cell operation. See Radio Boards for more information about the Wireless Mainboard platform.

Hardware

  • EFR32BG29B220F1024CJ45 SoC

  • CPU core: ARM Cortex®-M33 with FPU, DSP and TrustZone

  • Memory: 1024 kB Flash, 256 kB RAM

  • Transmit power: up to +4 dBm

  • Operation frequency: 2.4 GHz

  • Crystals for LFXO (32.768 kHz) and HFXO (38.4 MHz)

For more information about the EFR32BG29 SoC and BRD4420A board, refer to these documents:

Supported Features

The bg29_rb4420a 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.

System Clock

The EFR32BG29 SoC is configured to use the HFRCODPLL oscillator at 76.8 MHz as the system clock, locked to the 38.4 MHz external crystal oscillator on the board.

Serial Port

The EFR32BG29 SoC has two USARTs and two EUSARTs. USART1 is connected to the board controller and is used for the console.

Programming and Debugging

The bg29_rb4420a board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

Connect the BRD4002A mainboard with a mounted BRD4420A radio board to your host computer using the USB port.

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b bg29_rb4420a samples/hello_world
west flash

Open a serial terminal (minicom, putty, etc.) with the following settings:

  • Speed: 115200

  • Data: 8 bits

  • Parity: None

  • Stop bits: 1

Reset the board and you should see the following message in the terminal:

Hello World! bg29_rb4420a

Bluetooth

To use Bluetooth functionality, run the command below to retrieve necessary binary blobs from the Silicon Labs HAL repository.

west blobs fetch hal_silabs

Then build the Zephyr kernel and a Bluetooth sample with the following command. The Observer sample application is used in this example.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b bg29_rb4420a samples/bluetooth/observer