RAK11720

The RAK11720 is a WisBlock Core module for RAK WisBlock. It is based on the powerful ultra-low power Apollo3 Blue SoC (AMA3B1KK-KBR-B0) from Ambiq together with a Semtech SX1262 LoRa® transceiver.

The AMA3B1KK-KBR-B0 has an integrated Bluetooth Low Energy transceiver that enhances the communication capabilities. The RAK11720 stamp module comes in the same size and footprint as our RAK3172 module which gives you the opportunity to enhance your existing designs with BLE without designing a new PCB.

Hardware

The easiset way to use a RAK11720, is the WisBlock Modular system. A WisBlock Base board (RAK19007) which provides the power supply and programming/debug interface is the base to plug a RAK11722 (WisBlock Core module with the RAK11720) in.

  • Apollo3 Blue SoC with up to 96 MHz operating frequency

  • ARM® Cortex® M4F core

  • 16 kB 2-way Associative/Direct-Mapped Cache per core

  • Up to 1 MB of flash memory for code/data

  • Up to 384 KB of low leakage / low power RAM for code/data

  • Integrated Bluetooth 5 Low-energy controller

  • Semtech SX1262 low power high range LoRa transceiver

  • iPEX connectors for the LORA antenna and BLE antenna.

  • 2 user LEDs on RAK19007 WisBlock Base board

  • Powered by either Micro USB, 3.7V rechargeable battery or a 5V Solar Panel Port

For more information about the RAK11720 stamp module:

Supported Features

The RAK11720 module configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface

Controller

Driver/Component

MPU

on-chip

arch/arm

NVIC

on-chip

arch/arm

SYSTICK

on-chip

systick

STIMER

on-chip

stimer

GPIO

on-chip

gpio

UART

on-chip

serial

WDT

on-chip

watchdog

RADIO

on-chip

bluetooth

RADIO

on-board

LoRa (SX1262)

The default configuration can be found in the defconfig file: boards/rak/rak11720/rak11720_defconfig.

Programming and Debugging

The RAK11720 board shall be connected to a Segger Embedded Debugger Unit J-Link OB. This provides a debug interface to the Apollo3 Blue chip. You can use JLink to communicate with the Apollo3 Blue.

Flashing an application

Connect your device to your host computer using the JLINK USB port. The sample application Hello World is used for this example. Build the Zephyr kernel and application, then flash it to the device:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b rak11720 samples/hello_world
west flash

Note

west flash requires SEGGER J-Link software and pylink Python module to be installed on you host computer.

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 be able to see on the corresponding Serial Port the following message:

Hello World! rak11720/apollo3_blue