C

EK-RA6M3G Kit

This topic provides board-specific information about Renesas' EK-RA6M3G.

Board features

  • R7FA6M3AH3CFC MCU featuring ARM® Cortex®-M4, 2 MB Flash, 640 KB RAM
  • 4.3” 480x272 LCD Touch Display
  • 32 MB External QSPI Flash

Supported color depths

The reference port for this board supports 16bpp color depth. The board also supports 24bpp and 32bpp, but they are not implemented in the reference port. See QUL_COLOR_DEPTH and Color depth for more information.

Configure the operating mode

Select an operating mode for the MCU using the J16 jumper on the board, depending on the software used with the MCU.

MCU Boot modeJumper J16USB port for the connection
Normal/Single-Chip modeOpenJ10
SCI/USB Boot modeClosedJ11

See Renesas RA6M3 Group - User’s Manual: Hardware for the details.

Flashing the firmware

Select an appropriate boot mode for the MCU before flashing the firmware using one of the tools listed below.

SoftwareMCU Boot mode
Renesas e2 studioNormal/Single-Chip mode
SEGGER J-Link/J-Flash (Lite)Normal/Single-Chip mode

Prebuilt demos and examples

The Qt for MCUs package for EK-RA6M3G board comes with a prebuilt thermo demo binary. You can find it in the demos_images directory.

Building applications with prebuilt Qt Quick Ultralite libraries

Open the CMake project file for the example you want to build and configure it with the kit you created earlier. Once the project is configured, select Run or press Ctrl+r on your keyboard to build and flash the binary to the target.

Reading debug messages

By default, log data is redirected to UART on the Serial Communications Interface channel 0 (SCI0).

Board pin numberBoard pin typeTTL-232-USB cable pin
GNDGroundGND
P410RXD0TXD
P411TXD0RXD

Port settings

SettingValue
Bits per second115200
Data bits8
ParityNone
Stop bits1
Flow controlNone

Debugging

Renesas e2 studio

Renesas e2 studio lets you debug a project using a custom configuration.

  • Open Run from the top menu
  • Select Debug Configurations...
  • Select Renesas GDB Hardware Debugging
  • Click Browse... from the C/C++ Application: and select .elf file to be debugged
  • Click Apply and Close
  • Click Launch in 'Debug' mode

Use SEGGER J-Link GDB Server to create GDB server.

This page uses QUL_ROOT and QUL_TOOLS in command line examples as if they were set as environment variables. For example:

export QUL_ROOT=$HOME/Qt/QtMCUs/dev
export QUL_TOOLS=$HOME/Qt/Tools/QtMCUs
set QUL_ROOT=C:\Qt\QtMCUs\dev
set QUL_TOOLS=C:\Qt\Tools\QtMCUs
  • Select Connection to J-Link as USB
  • Select Target device as R7FA6M3AH
  • Select Target interface as SWD
  • Select Speed as Fixed 4000 kHz
  • Click OK

    GDB Server is now listening for TCP connections on the default port, 2331.

  • Run arm-none-eabi-gdb in a separate console
    $QUL_TOOLS/arm_gcc_10/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb <PATH_TO>/your_app.elf
    %QUL_TOOLS%\arm_gcc_10\bin\arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe <PATH_TO>\your_app.elf
  • Connect to the target via the gdbserver in the arm-none-eabi-gdb console using

    Note: Actual TCP port used is printed out on gdbserver's console.

    (gdb) target remote 127.0.0.1:2331

Notes

  • Excludes demos, examples, and tests that do not fit into the flash memory or require more RAM than available on the MCU.
  • Set stack region to overlap with the heap region in the default platform adaptation, to enable building tests and demos, which have different stack and heap requirements.
  • Define size for the stack and heap to ensure that the Memory Protection Unit detects stack overflow and underflow.
  • Image and font data are stored into the MCU's internal flash memory by default. The larger Qt Quick Ultralite demos do not fit into internal flash memory for release or debug builds. In that case, sections QulResourceDataExtFlash and QulFontResourceDataExtFlash can be used to move image or font data into the external flash memory. For reference, see ImageFiles.MCU.resourceStorageSection, MCU.Config.fontFilesStorageSection, and MCU.Config.glyphsStorageSection.

Default FSP Configuration in Renesas e2 studio

Note: Use the default value for the property if not specified in the table.

BSP

PropertyValue
RA Common > Main stack size (bytes)32768
RA Common > Heap size (bytes)102400

Notes:

  • The values listed earlier are relevant for initial testing only, as the stack and heap sizes are application-specific.
  • On default platform adaptation, these values do not have any effect as custom implementation allows the stack region to overlap with the heap region.
  • Use the startup.c and system.c files from the e2 Studio project to set the stack and heap size. You can find these system files in the ra/fsp/src/bsp/cmsis/Device/RENESAS/Source directory.
  • Use the script/fsp.ld linker script generated by e2 Studio as a reference to set stack and heap regions properly.

Stacks

Add the following stacks and configure them:

Analog > ADC (r_adc)

PropertyValue
Module > General > Nameg_adc0
Module > Input > Channel Scan Mask > Channel 2Selected
Pins > AN02P002

Connectivity > I2C Master (r_iic_master)

PropertyValue
Module > Nameg_i2c_touch
Module > Channel2
Module > RateFast-mode
Module > Rise Time (ns)120
Module > Fall Time (ns)120
Module > Duty Cycle (%)50
Module > Slave Address0x38
Module > Address Mode7-bit
Module > Timeout ModeShort Mode
Module > Callbacktouch_i2c_callback
Module > Interrupt Priority LevelPriority 6
Pins > SDAP511
Pins > SCLP512

Connectivity > UART (r_sci_uart)

PropertyValue
Module > General > Nameg_uart0
Module > General > Channel0
Module > General > Data Bits8bits
Module > General > ParityNone
Module > General > Stop Bits1bit
Module > Interrupts > Callbackuser_uart_callback
Pins > TXD_MOSIP411
Pins > RXD_MISOP410

Note: Set the Operation Mode to Asynchronous UART while assigning the pins for the UART. Additionally, either disable SPI0 or assign different pins to use the P410 and P411 pins for UART.

Graphics > D/AVE 2D Port Interface (r_drw)

PropertyValue
Common > Allow Indirect ModeEnabled
Common > Memory AllocationDefault
Module > D2 Device Handle Named2_handle0
Module > DRW Interrupt PriorityPriority 2

Graphics > Graphics LCD (r_glcdc)

PropertyValue
Module > General > Nameg_display0
Module > Interrupts > Callback Functionglcdc_callback
Module > Interrupts > Line Detect Interrupt PriorityPriority 2
Module > Input > Graphics Layer 1 > Framebuffer > Number of framebuffers1

Note: If you need double buffering, change Number of framebuffers to 2.

Input > External IRQ (r_icu)

PropertyValue
Module > Nameg_touch_irq
Module > Channel0
Module > TriggerFalling
Module > Digital FilteringEnabled
Module > Digital Filtering Sample ClockPCLK / 64
Module > Callbacktouch_irq_cb
Module > Pin Interrupt PriorityPriority 5
Pins > IRQ00P206

Note: Ensure that P206 is IRQ mode and its Pull up property is input pull-up.

Storage > QSPI (r_qspi)

PropertyValue
Module > General > Nameg_qspi0
Module > General > Bus Timing > Minimum QSSL Deselect Cycles8 QSPCLK

Timers > Timer, General PWM (r_gpt)

PropertyValue
Common > Pin Output SupportEnabled
Module > General > Nameg_timer_PWM
Module > General > Channel7
Module > General > ModePWM
Module > General > Period10
Module > General > Period UnitMilliseconds
Module > Output > Duty Cycle Percent75
Module > Output > GTIOCA Output EnabledTrue
Pins > GTIOCAP603

Note: When setting the GTIOCA pin, ensure that Operation Mode of the GPT Timer is GTIOCA or GTIOCB, and pin P603 is Peripheral mode.

Known issues or limitations

  • Does not support asset preloading due to limited amount of RAM and non-availability of SDRAM on the evaluation kit board.
  • Uses single-buffering technique by default due to limited amount of RAM. This might result in on-screen flickering. Double-buffering can be enabled from the Renesas e2 studio Graphics LCD (r_glcdc) stack configuration.
  • To prevent visual artifacts from appearing, try to reduce the use of rotated or perspective-transformed images that need to be blended using the CPU. Rebuilding the Qt Quick Ultralite core library in Release might help reducing such artifacts.

Available under certain Qt licenses.
Find out more.