RA4C1 Evaluation Kit

Overview

The EK-RA4C1, an Evaluation Kit for the RA4 Series, enables users to seamlessly evaluate the features of the RA4C1 MCU group. The users can use rich on-board features along with their choice of popular ecosystems add-ons to bring their big ideas to life.

The key features of the EK-RA4C1 board are categorized in three groups (consistent with the architecture of the kit) as follows:

Renesas RA4C1 Microcontroller Group

  • R7FA4C1BD3CFP MCU (referred to as RA MCU)

  • 80 MHz, Arm® Cortex®-M33 core

  • 512 KB Code Flash, 96 KB SRAM

  • 100 pins, LQFP package

  • Native pin access through 3 x 26-pin headers (not populated)

  • Tamper Detection embedded into J4

  • Segment LCD Board Interface

  • MCU current measurement points for precision current consumption measurement

  • Multiple clock sources – RA MCU oscillator and sub-clock oscillator crystals, providing precision 8.000 MHz and 32,768 Hz reference clocks. Additional low-precision clocks are available internal to the RA MCU

System Control and Ecosystem Access

  • Two 5 V input sources

    • USB (Debug)

    • External Power Supply 2-pin header (not populated)

  • Three Debug modes

    • Debug on-board (SWD)

    • Debug in (SWD)

    • Debug out (SWD, SWO and JTAG)

  • User LEDs and buttons

    • Three User LEDs (red, blue, green)

    • Power LED (white) indicating availability of regulated power

    • Debug LED (yellow) indicating the debug connection

    • Two User buttons

    • One Reset button

  • Five most popular ecosystems expansions

    • Two Seeed Grove® system (I2C/Analog) connectors (not populated)

    • SparkFun® Qwiic® connector (not populated)

    • Two Digilent PmodTM (SPI, UART and I2C) connectors

    • Arduino™ (UNO R3) connector

    • MikroElektronikaTM mikroBUS connector (not populated)

  • MCU boot configuration jumper

  • Low Voltage Mode voltage input and operation

Special Feature Access - 32 MB (256 Mb) External Quad-SPI Flash - CAN-FD (3-pin header) - External Battery Connector - Configuration Switch

Hardware

Detailed hardware features can be found at: - RA4C1 MCU: RA4C1 Group User’s Manual Hardware [2] - EK-RA4C1 board: EK-RA4C1 - User’s Manual [1]

Supported Features

The ek_ra4c1 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.

ek_ra4c1/r7fa4c1bd3cfp target

Type

Location

Description

Compatible

CPU

on-chip

ARM Cortex-M33 CPU1

arm,cortex-m33

ADC

on-chip

Renesas RA ADC node1

renesas,ra-adc

CAN

on-chip

Renesas RA CANFD controller global1

renesas,ra-canfd-global

on-chip

Renesas RA CANFD controller1

renesas,ra-canfd

Clock control

on-chip

Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit external clock configuration1

renesas,ra-cgc-external-clock

on-chip

Generic fixed-rate clock provider3

fixed-clock

on-chip

Renesas RA Sub-Clock1

renesas,ra-cgc-subclk

on-chip

Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit PLL Clock1

renesas,ra-cgc-pll

on-chip

Renesas RA Clock Generation Circuit UTASEL Clock1

renesas,ra-cgc-utasel

on-chip

Renesas RA Clock Control node pclk block1

renesas,ra-cgc-pclk-block

on-chip

Renesas RA Clock Control Peripheral Clock7 3

renesas,ra-cgc-pclk

Counter

on-chip

Renesas RA AGT as Counter2

renesas,ra-agt-counter

Flash controller

on-chip

Renesas RA family flash high-performance controller1

renesas,ra-flash-hp-controller

GPIO & Headers

on-chip

Renesas RA GPIO I/O Port5 4

renesas,ra-gpio-ioport

I2C

on-chip

Renesas RA I2C Master controller1 1

renesas,ra-iic

Input

on-board

Group of GPIO-bound input keys1

gpio-keys

Interrupt controller

on-chip

ARMv8-M NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller)1

arm,v8m-nvic

LED

on-board

Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1

gpio-leds

Miscellaneous

on-chip

Renesas RA Event Link Controller1

renesas,ra-elc

on-chip

Renesas RA SCI controller1 5

renesas,ra-sci

on-chip

Renesas RA AGT2

renesas,ra-agt

on-chip

Renesas RA External Interrupt2 14

renesas,ra-external-interrupt

MMU / MPU

on-chip

ARMv8-M MPU (Memory Protection Unit)1

arm,armv8m-mpu

MTD

on-chip

Flash memory binding for Renesas RA Code flash region1

renesas,ra-nv-code-flash

on-chip

Flash memory binding for Renesas RA Data flash region1

renesas,ra-nv-data-flash

on-board

Fixed partitions of a flash (or other non-volatile storage) memory1

fixed-partitions

Pin control

on-chip

Renesas RA Pin Controller1

renesas,ra-pinctrl-pfs

PWM

on-chip

Renesas RA Pulse Width Modulation1 5

renesas,ra-pwm

Reserved memory

on-chip

Renesas Option-Setting Memory9

renesas,ofs-memory

Serial controller

on-chip

Renesas RA SCI UART controller1 5

renesas,ra-sci-uart

SPI

on-chip

Renesas RA SPI controller1 2

renesas,ra-spi

SRAM

on-chip

Generic on-chip SRAM1

mmio-sram

Timer

on-chip

ARMv8-M System Tick1

arm,armv8m-systick

Watchdog

on-chip

Renesas RA Watchdog (wdt)1

renesas,ra-wdt

Programming and Debugging

The ek_ra4c1 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug rtt attach debugserver
jlink ✅ (default) ✅ (default)
pyocd

Flashing

Program can be flashed to EK-RA4C1 via the on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger. SEGGER J-link’s drivers are avaialbe 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-RA4C1 - User’s Manual [1]. Note: SW4-4 needs to be set to OFF

  3. Execute west command

west flash -r jlink

References