This is the documentation for the latest (main) development branch of Zephyr. If you are looking for the documentation of previous releases, use the drop-down menu on the left and select the desired version.

nRF52 DK

Overview

The nRF52 Development Kit (PCA10040) hardware provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 ARM Cortex-M4F CPU and the following devices:

  • ADC

  • CLOCK

  • FLASH

  • GPIO

  • I2C

  • MPU

  • NVIC

  • PWM

  • RADIO (Bluetooth Low Energy)

  • RTC

  • Segger RTT (RTT Console)

  • SPI

  • UART

  • WDT

nRF52 DK

nRF52 DK (Credit: Nordic Semiconductor)

More information about the board can be found at the nRF52 DK website 1. The Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter 2 contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.

Hardware

nRF52 DK has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 32 MHz.

Supported Features

The nrf52dk_nrf52832 board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface

Controller

Driver/Component

ADC

on-chip

adc

CLOCK

on-chip

clock_control

FLASH

on-chip

flash

GPIO

on-chip

gpio

I2C(M)

on-chip

i2c

MPU

on-chip

arch/arm

NVIC

on-chip

arch/arm

PWM

on-chip

pwm

RADIO

on-chip

Bluetooth

RTC

on-chip

system clock

RTT

Segger

console

SPI(M/S)

on-chip

spi

UART

on-chip

serial

WDT

on-chip

watchdog

Other hardware features are not supported by the Zephyr kernel. See nRF52 DK website 1 and Nordic Semiconductor Infocenter 2 for a complete list of nRF52 Development Kit board hardware features.

Connections and IOs

LED

  • LED1 (green) = P0.17

  • LED2 (green) = P0.18

  • LED3 (green) = P0.19

  • LED4 (green) = P0.20

  • LD5 (red/green) = OB LED 1/2

Push buttons

  • BUTTON1 = SW1 = P0.13

  • BUTTON2 = SW2 = P0.14

  • BUTTON3 = SW3 = P0.15

  • BUTTON4 = SW4 = P0.16

  • BOOT = SW5 = boot/reset

External Connectors

J-Link Prog Connector

PIN #

Signal Name

1

VDD

2

IMCU_TMSS

3

GND

4

IMCU_TCKS

5

V5V

6

IMCU_TDOS

7

Cut off

8

IMCU_TDIS

9

Cut off

10

IMCU_RESET

Debug IN

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

VDD

N/A

2

SWDIO

SWDIO

3

GND

N/A

4

SWDCLK

SWDCLK

5

GND

N/A

6

P0.18

P0.18 / TRACEDATA[0] / SWO

7

Cut off

N/A

8

Cut off

N/A

9

GND

N/A

10

P0.21

P0.21 / RESET

Debug OUT

PIN #

Signal Name

1

EXT_VTG

2

EXT_SWDIO

3

GND

4

EXT_SWDCLK

5

GND

6

EXT_SWO

7

Cut off

8

Cut off

9

EXT_GND_DETECT

10

EXT_RESET

Shield Debug and Current measurement

PIN #

Signal Name

1

VDD_nRF

2

VDD

3

SH_VTG

4

SH_SWDIO

5

SH_SWDCLK

6

SH_SWO

7

SH_RESET

8

SH_GND_DETECT

Auxiliary

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

P0.00

P0.00 / XL1

2

P0.01

P0.01 / XL2

3

P0.21

P0.21 / RESET

4

P0.05_C

P0.05 / AIN3

5

P0.06_C

P0.06

6

P0.07_C

P0.07

7

P0.08_C

P0.08

8

P0.09

P0.09 / NFC1

9

P0.10

P0.10 / NFC2

Arduino Headers

P1/P7 Power

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

VDD

N/A

2

VDD

N/A

3

RESET

P0.21 / RESET

4

VDD

N/A

5

V5V

N/A

6

GND

N/A

7

GND

N/A

8

VIN

N/A

P2/P8 Analog in

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

A0

P0.03 / AIN1

2

A1

P0.04 / AIN2

3

A2

P0.28 / AIN4

4

A3

P0.29 / AIN5

5

A4

P0.30 / AIN6

6

A5

P0.31 / AIN7

P3/P9 Digital I/O

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

D0 (RX)

P0.11

2

D1 (TX)

P0.12

3

D2

P0.13

4

D3

P0.14 / TRACEDATA[3]

5

D4

P0.15 / TRACEDATA[2]

6

D5

P0.16 / TRACEDATA[1]

7

D6

P0.17

8

D7

P0.18 / TRACEDATA[3] / SWO

P4/P10 Digital I/O

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

D8

P0.19

2

D9

P0.20 / TRACECLK

3

D10 (SS)

P0.22

4

D11 (MOSI)

P0.23

5

D12 (MISO)

P0.24

6

D13 (SCK)

P0.25

7

GND

N/A

8

AREF

P0.02 / AIN0

9

SDA

P0.26

10

SCL

P0.27

P5/P11

PIN #

Signal Name

NRF52832 Functions

1

D12 (MISO)

P0.24

2

V5V

N/A

3

D13 (SCK)

P0.25

4

D11 (MOSI)

P0.23

5

RESET

N/A

6

N/A

N/A

Programming and Debugging

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 nRF52 DK 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 nrf52dk_nrf52832 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 and buttons in the nRF52 DK

There are 2 samples that allow you to test that the buttons (switches) and LEDs on the board are working properly with Zephyr:

samples/basic/blinky
samples/basic/button

You can build and flash the examples to make sure Zephyr is running correctly on your board. The button and LED definitions can be found in boards/arm/nrf52dk_nrf52832/nrf52dk_nrf52832.dts.