nRF51 DK

Overview

The nRF51 Development Kit (PCA10028) hardware provides support for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 ARM Cortex-M0 CPU.

More information about the board can be found at the nRF51 DK website [1]. The nRF51 Development Kit User Guide [2] contains the processor’s information and the datasheet.

Hardware

nRF51 DK has two external oscillators. The frequency of the slow clock is 32.768 kHz. The frequency of the main clock is 16 MHz.

Supported Features

The nrf51dk 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.

See nRF51 DK website [1] and nRF51 Development Kit User Guide [2] for a complete list of nRF51 Development Kit board hardware features.

Connections and IOs

LED

  • LED1 (green) = P0.21

  • LED2 (green) = P0.22

  • LED3 (green) = P0.23

  • LED4 (green) = P0.24

Push buttons

  • BUTTON1 = SW1 = P0.17

  • BUTTON2 = SW2 = P0.18

  • BUTTON3 = SW3 = P0.19

  • BUTTON4 = SW4 = P0.20

  • BOOT = SW5 = boot/reset

Programming and Debugging

The nrf51dk board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

flash debug

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 nRF51 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 nrf51dk/nrf51822 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 nRF51 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/nordic/nrf51dk/nrf51dk_nrf51822.dts.

References