nRF51 Dongle
Overview
The nRF51 Dongle (PCA10031) hardware provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 ARM Cortex-M0 CPU and the following devices:
ADC
CLOCK
FLASH
GPIO
I2C
NVIC
RADIO (Bluetooth Low Energy)
RTC
Segger RTT (RTT Console)
SPI
UART
WDT
More information about the board can be found at the nRF51 Dongle website [1]. The Nordic Semiconductor TechDocs [2] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.
Hardware
nRF51 Dongle has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 16 MHz.
Supported Features
The nrf51dongle 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.
Type |
Location |
Description |
Compatible |
|---|---|---|---|
CPU |
on-chip |
ARM Cortex-M0 CPU1 |
|
ADC |
on-chip |
nRF ADC node1 |
|
ARM architecture |
on-chip |
Nordic UICR (User Information Configuration Registers)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1 |
||
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family SWI (Software Interrupt)6 |
||
Clock control |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF clock control node1 |
|
Comparator |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF LPCOMP (analog Low-Power COMParator)1 |
|
Counter |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF timer node3 |
|
Cryptographic accelerator |
on-chip |
Nordic ECB (AES electronic codebook mode encryption)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family CCM (AES CCM mode encryption)1 |
||
Flash controller |
on-chip |
Nordic NVMC (Non-Volatile Memory Controller)1 |
|
GPIO & Headers |
on-chip |
NRF5 GPIOTE1 |
|
on-chip |
NRF5 GPIO1 |
||
I2C |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family TWI (TWI master)2 |
|
Interrupt controller |
on-chip |
ARMv6-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller) controller1 |
|
LED |
on-board |
Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1 |
|
on-board |
Group of PWM-controlled LEDs1 |
||
Miscellaneous |
on-chip |
Nordic FICR (Factory Information Configuration Registers)1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family PPI (Programmable Peripheral Interconnect)1 |
||
MTD |
on-chip |
Flash node1 |
|
on-board |
Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1 |
||
Networking |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family RADIO peripheral1 |
|
Pin control |
on-chip |
The nRF pin controller is a singleton node responsible for controlling pin function selection and pin properties1 |
|
Power management |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF power control node1 |
|
PWM |
on-chip |
nRFx S/W PWM1 |
|
Retained memory |
on-chip |
Nordic GPREGRET (General Purpose Register Retention) device1 |
|
RNG |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family RNG (Random Number Generator)1 |
|
RTC |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF RTC (Real-Time Counter)2 |
|
Sensors |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family TEMP node1 |
|
on-chip |
Nordic nRF quadrature decoder (QDEC) node1 |
||
Serial controller |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family UART1 |
|
SPI |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family SPI (SPI master)2 |
|
SRAM |
on-chip |
Generic on-chip SRAM1 |
|
Watchdog |
on-chip |
Nordic nRF family WDT (Watchdog Timer)1 |
See nRF51 Dongle website [1] and Nordic Semiconductor TechDocs [2] for a complete list of nRF51 Dongle hardware features.
Connections and IOs
LED
LED1 (red) = P0.21
LED1 (green) = P0.22
LED1 (blue) = P0.23
Programming and Debugging
The nrf51dongle board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.
| flash | debug | attach | debugserver | rtt | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| jlink | ✅ | ✅ (default) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| nrfjprog | ✅ | ||||
| nrfutil | ✅ (default) |
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).
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 nRF51 Dongle
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 nrf51dongle/nrf51822 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.
Testing the LEDs on the nRF51 Dongle
Build and flash the Blinky sample to test that the onboard LED is working properly with Zephyr.