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.

bg29_rb4420a/efr32bg29b220f1024cj45 target

Type

Location

Description

Compatible

CPU

on-chip

ARM Cortex-M33 CPU1

arm,cortex-m33

ADC

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 IADC1

silabs,gecko-iadc

Bluetooth

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 Bluetooth HCI1

silabs,bt-hci-efr32

Clock control

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 CMU1

silabs,series-clock

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 HFXO1

silabs,hfxo

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 HFRCODPLL1

silabs,series2-hfrcodpll

on-chip

Generic fixed-rate clock provider3

fixed-clock

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 LFXO1

silabs,series2-lfxo

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 LFRCO1

silabs,series2-lfrco

on-chip

Generic fixed factor clock provider18

fixed-factor-clock

Comparator

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 ACMP1

silabs,acmp

Cryptographic accelerator

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 SE Mailbox1

silabs,gecko-semailbox

Debug

on-chip

Silicon Labs Packet Trace Interface1

silabs,pti

on-chip

ARMv8 instrumentation trace macrocell1

arm,armv8m-itm

DMA

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 LDMA1

silabs,ldma

Flash controller

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 MSC1

silabs,series2-flash-controller

GPIO & Headers

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 GPIO Peripheral1

silabs,gpio

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 GPIO Port4

silabs,gpio-port

I2C

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 0-2 I2C2

silabs,gecko-i2c

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

on-board

Group of PWM-controlled LEDs1

pwm-leds

MTD

on-chip

Flash node1

soc-nv-flash

on-board

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

fixed-partitions

on-board

Properties supporting Zephyr spi-nor flash driver (over the Zephyr SPI API) control of serial flash memories using the standard M25P80-based command set1

jedec,spi-nor

Networking

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 Radio Interface1

silabs,series2-radio

Pin control

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 DBUS Pin Controller1

silabs,dbus-pinctrl

PWM

on-chip

Silicon Labs TIMER PWM5

silabs,timer-pwm

on-chip

Silicon Labs LETIMER PWM1

silabs,letimer-pwm

Regulator

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 DC-DC converter1

silabs,series2-dcdc

RTC

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 Sleeptimer1

silabs,gecko-stimer

Serial controller

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 USART1 1

silabs,usart-uart

SPI

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 EUSART 1 1

silabs,eusart-spi

SRAM

on-chip

Generic on-chip SRAM1

mmio-sram

Timer

on-chip

ARMv8-M System Tick1

arm,armv8m-systick

on-chip

Silicon Labs TIMER5

silabs,series2-timer

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 2 BURTC1

silabs,gecko-burtc

on-chip

Silicon Labs LETIMER1

silabs,series2-letimer

Watchdog

on-chip

Silicon Labs Series 1-2 WDOG1

silabs,gecko-wdog

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 debugserver attach rtt
jlink ✅ (default) ✅ (default)
silabs_commander

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