EFR32MG12 Thunderboard (SLTB004A)

Overview

The EFR32MG12 Thunderboard (a.k.a Thunderboard Sense 2) contains an MCU from the EFR32MG12 family built on ARM® Cortex®-M4F processor with low power capabilities.

Hardware

  • EFR32MG12 Mighty Gecko Wireless SoC with 38.4 MHz operating frequency

  • ARM® Cortex® M4 core with 256 kB RAM and 1024 kB Flash

  • Macronix ultra low power 8-Mbit SPI flash (MX25R8035F)

  • 2.4 GHz ceramic antenna for wireless transmission

  • Silicon Labs Si7021 relative humidity and temperature sensor

  • Silicon Labs Si1133 UV index and ambient light sensor

  • Silicon Labs Si7210 hall effect sensor

  • Bosch Sensortec BMP280 barometric pressure sensor

  • ams CCS811 indoor air quality gas sensor

  • TDK InvenSense ICM-20648 6-axis inertial sensor

  • TDK InvenSense ICS-43434 MEMS microphone

  • Four high brightness RGB LEDs from Broadcom Limited (ASMT-YTB7-0AA02)

  • One bi-color LED and two push buttons

  • Power enable signals for fine grained power-control

  • On-board SEGGER J-Link debugger for easy programming and debugging, which includes a USB virtual COM port

  • Mini Simplicity connector for access to energy profiling and advanced wireless network debugging

  • Breakout pads for GPIO access and connection to external hardware

  • Reset button

  • Automatic switch-over between USB and battery power

  • CR2032 coin cell holder and external battery connector

For more information about the EFR32MG12 SoC and Thunderboard Sense 2 board:

Supported Features

The sltb004a board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface

Controller

Driver/Component

MPU

on-chip

memory protection unit

NVIC

on-chip

nested vector interrupt controller

SYSTICK

on-chip

systick

COUNTER

on-chip

rtcc

FLASH

on-chip

flash memory

GPIO

on-chip

gpio

UART

on-chip

serial port-polling; serial port-interrupt

I2C

on-chip

i2c port-polling

SPI(M)

on-chip

spi port-polling

WATCHDOG

on-chip

watchdog

TRNG

on-chip

true random number generator

The default configuration can be found in boards/silabs/dev_kits/sltb004a/sltb004a_defconfig

Other hardware features are currently not supported by the port.

Connections and IOs

The EFR32MG12 SoC has eight gpio controllers (PORTA, PORTB, PORTC, PORTD, PORTF, PORTI, PORTJ and PORTK).

In the following table, the column Name contains Pin names. For example, PE2 means Pin number 2 on PORTE and #27 represents the location bitfield , as used in the board’s and microcontroller’s datasheets and manuals.

Name

Function

Usage

PD8

GPIO

LED0 (RED)

PD9

GPIO

LED1 (GREEN)

PD14

GPIO

SW0 Push Button PB0

PD15

GPIO

Push Button PB1

PA0

UART_TX

UART TX Console VCOM_TX US0_TX #0

PA1

UART_RX

UART RX Console VCOM_RX US0_RX #0

PF3

UART_TX

EXP12_UART_TX LEU0_TX #27

PF4

UART_RX

EXP14_UART_RX LEU0_RX #27

PC10

I2C_SDA

EXP16_I2C_SDA I2C0_SDA #15

PC11

I2C_SCL

EXP15_I2C_SCL I2C0_SCL #15

PB6

I2C_SDA

CCS811_I2C_SDA I2C1_SDA #6

PB7

I2C_SCL

CCS811_I2C_SCL I2C1_SCL #6

PK0

SPI_MOSI

Flash MOSI US2_TX #29

PK2

SPI_MISO

Flash MISO US2_RX #30

PF7

SPI_SCLK

Flash SCLK US2_CLK #18

PK1

SPI_CS

Flash Chip Select (GPIO)

System Clock

The EFR32MG12 SoC is configured to use the 38.4 MHz external oscillator on the board.

Serial Port

The EFR32MG12 SoC has four USARTs and one Low Energy UARTs (LEUART with 9600 maximum baudrate). USART0 is configured as the Zephyr console and is connected to the On-Board J-Link Debugger that presents a virtual COM port for general purpose application serial data transfer with this interface.

Programming and Debugging

Note

Before using the kit the first time, you should update the J-Link firmware from J-Link-Downloads

Flashing

The SLTB004A includes an J-Link serial and debug adaptor built into the board. The adaptor provides:

  • A USB connection to the host computer, which exposes a Mass Storage and a USB Serial Port.

  • A Serial Flash device, which implements the USB flash disk file storage.

  • A physical UART connection which is relayed over interface USB Serial port.

Flashing an application to SLTB004A

The sample application Hello World is used for this example. Build the Zephyr kernel and application:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b sltb004a samples/hello_world

Connect the SLTB004A to your host computer using the USB port and you should see a USB connection which exposes a Mass Storage (TB004) and a USB Serial Port. Copy the generated zephyr.bin in the SLTB004A drive.

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! sltb004a