R-Car Spider
Overview
R-Car S4 Spider board is based on the R-Car S4 SoC made for Car Server/Communication Gateway and that is composed of a octo Cortex®-A55, a dual lockstep Cortex®-R52 and a double dual lockstep G4MH.
The R-Car S4 SoC enables the launch of Car Server/CoGW with high performance, high-speed networking, high security and high functional safety levels that are required as E/E architectures evolve into domains and zones.
The R-Car S4 solution allows designers to re-use up to 88 percent of software code developed for 3rd generation R-Car SoCs and RH850 MCU applications. The software package supports the real-time cores with various drivers and basic software such as Linux BSP and hypervisors.
The Renesas R-Car Spider board is the Renesas R-Car S4 reference board and is designed for evaluating features and performance of this SoC.
Zephyr OS support is available for both Cortex®-A cores & Cortex®-R52 core.
More information about the S4 SoC can be fount at Renesas R-Car S4 chip.
Hardware
Spider features:
Connectors
CPU Board:
CN1 JTAG1
CN2 JTAG2
CN3 EX-SPI (QSPI0)
CN4 MicroSD Slot (back side)
CN11 EXIO Connector A (back side)
CN12 EXIO Connector B (back side)
CN14 EVT
CN16 OcuLink (PCIe0,PCIe1)
CN24 CAN 4pin
CN20 USB microAB (SCIF0)
CN21 USB microAB (HSCIF0)
CN22 SW Board
CN23 CPLD JTAG
CN27 FAN
CN30 Buck3
CN31 Buck1
CN32 CAN 8pin (back side)
Breakout Board:
CN11 EXIO Connector A
CN12 EXIO Connector B
CN13 CAN 0/1
CN15 CAN 3/4/5
CN18 CAN 6/7/8
CN21 CAN 2/9/10/11
CN24 CAN 12/13/14/15
CN28 LIN0
CN29 LIN1
CN30 LIN2
CN31 LIN3
CN32 LIN4
CN33 LIN5
CN34 LIN6
CN35 LIN7
CN36 EtherTS
CN37 MSIOF0
CN38 CAN/LIN BOARD
CN39 GPIO CN_A
CN40 GPIO
CN41 I2C
CN42 HSCIF0
CN43 SCIF0
CN44 TSN_CN
CN45 Legacy 12V-in
CN46 AC Adapter
CN48 POWER CONTROL
CN50 Debug Serial
CN51 FAN
Input
SW1 (SPI Flash Memory / EX-SPI connector)
SW2 (Hyper Flash Memory / SPI Flash Memory)
SW3 (MicroSD Card Slot / eMMC Memory)
SW4 (PRESETn)
SW6 (Interface Voltage Setting for MMC/JTAG2)
SW8 Mode Setting
SW10 (Software Switch)
SW11 (Board Power-Supply Circuit Control)
SW12 (AURORES#)
SW13 (CANFD0 RX)
SW14 (CANFD0 TX)
SW15 (System Reset Switch)
Output
LED7 Software Controllable LED
LED8 Software Controllable LED
Supported Features
The rcar_spider_s4 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.
rcar_spider_s4/r8a779f0/a55 target
Type |
Location |
Description |
Compatible |
|---|---|---|---|
Clock control |
on-chip |
Renesas R8A779F0 SoC Clock Pulse Generator / Module Standby and Software Reset1 |
|
Interrupt controller |
on-chip |
ARM Generic Interrupt Controller v31 |
|
MMC |
on-chip |
Renesas R-Car eMMC1 |
|
Pin control |
on-chip |
Renesas R-Car Pin Function Controller1 |
|
Power management CPU operations |
on-chip |
Power State Coordination Interface (PSCI) version 0.21 |
|
Regulator |
on-chip |
Fixed voltage regulators2 |
|
Serial controller |
on-chip |
Renesas R-Car HSCIF controller1 |
|
Timer |
on-chip |
per-core ARM architected timer1 |
rcar_spider_s4/r8a779f0/r52 target
Type |
Location |
Description |
Compatible |
|---|---|---|---|
CPU |
on-chip |
ARM Cortex-R52 CPU1 |
|
Clock control |
on-chip |
Renesas R8A779F0 SoC Clock Pulse Generator / Module Standby and Software Reset1 |
|
GPIO & Headers |
on-chip |
Renesas RCAR GPIO2 |
|
Input |
on-board |
Group of GPIO-bound input keys1 |
|
Interrupt controller |
on-chip |
ARM Generic Interrupt Controller v31 |
|
LED |
on-board |
Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs1 |
|
Pin control |
on-chip |
Renesas R-Car Pin Function Controller1 |
|
Serial controller |
on-chip |
||
SRAM |
on-chip |
Generic on-chip SRAM1 |
|
Timer |
on-chip |
per-core ARM architected timer1 |
Note
It is recommended to disable peripherals used by the R52 core on the Linux host.
Connections and IOs
The Spider board consists of a CPU board plugged on top of a Breakout board.
Here are the official IOs figures from eLinux for S4 board:
GPIO
By running Zephyr on S4 Spider, the software controllable LED ‘LED8’ can be used as output.
UART
Here is information about both serial ports provided on the S4 Spider board :
Physical Interface |
Location |
Software Interface |
Converter |
Further Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CN20 USB Port |
CPU Board |
SCIF0/HSCIF1 |
FT232HQ |
Default Zephyr serial |
CN21 USB Port |
CPU Board |
SCIF3/HSCIF0 |
FT2232H-56Q |
Used by U-BOOT & Linux |
Note
The Zephyr console output is assigned to SCIF0 (CN20 USB Port) with settings: 115200 8N1 without hardware flow control by default.
I2C
I2C is mainly used to manage and power-on some onboard chips on the S4 Spider board.
Embedded I2C devices and I/O expanders are not yet supported. The current I2C support therefore does not make any devices available to the user at this time.
Programming and Debugging (A55)
At that time, no direct flashing method is officially supported by this Zephyr port. However, it is possible to load the Zephyr binary using U-Boot commands.
One of the ways to load Zephyr is shown below.
tftp 0x48000000 <tftp_server_path/zephyr.bin>
booti 0x48000000
Here is an example for the Hello World application.
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b rcar_spider_s4/r8a779f0/a55 samples/hello_world
Programming and Debugging (R52)
The rcar_spider_s4 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.
| flash | debug | debugserver | rtt | attach | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| openocd | ✅ (default) | ✅ (default) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).
Supported Debug Probe
The “Olimex ARM-USB-OCD-H” probe needs to be connected with a “Coresight 20 pins” adapter to CN1 connector on Spider board.
Configuring a Console
Connect a USB cable from your PC to CN20 USB port of your Spider board.
Use the following settings with your serial terminal of choice (minicom, putty, etc.):
Speed: 115200
Data: 8 bits
Parity: None
Stop bits: 1
Flashing
First of all, open your serial terminal.
Applications for the rcar_spider_s4/r8a779f0/r52 board configuration can be built in the
usual way (see Building an Application for more details).
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b rcar_spider_s4/r8a779f0/r52 samples/hello_world
west flash
You should see the following message in the terminal:
*** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.3.0-rc2 ***
Hello World! rcar_spider_s4
Debugging
First of all, open your serial terminal.
Here is an example for the Hello World application.
# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b rcar_spider_s4/r8a779f0/r52 samples/hello_world
west debug
You will then get access to a GDB session for debugging.
By continuing the app, you should see the following message in the terminal:
*** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.3.0-rc2 ***
Hello World! rcar_spider_s4