This directory contains example platform drivers for Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 SoC. The OpenThread stack has been officially certified as a Thread Certified Component on this platform.
To facilitate Thread products development with the nRF52840 platform, Nordic Semiconductor provides nRF5 SDK for Thread and Zigbee. See Nordic Semiconductor's nRF5 SDK for Thread and Zigbee section for more details.
Before you start building the examples, you must download and install the toolchain and the tools required for flashing and debugging.
Download and install the GNU toolchain for ARM Cortex-M.
To install the GNU toolchain and its dependencies, run the following commands in Bash:
$ cd <path-to-openthread> $ ./script/bootstrap
Install the nRF Command Line Tools to flash, debug, and make use of logging features on the nRF52840 DK with SEGGER J-Link.
To build the examples, run the following command in Bash:
$ cd <path-to-openthread> $ ./bootstrap $ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840
After a successful build, the elf files can be found in <path-to-openthread>/output/nrf52840/bin. You can convert them to hex using arm-none-eabi-objcopy:
$ arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex ot-cli-ftd ot-cli-ftd.hex
You can build the libraries with support for the native USB CDC ACM as a serial transport. To do so, build the firmware with the following parameter:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 USB=1
Note that the USB CDC ACM serial transport is not supported with Engineering sample A of the nRF52840 chip.
If you are using Windows 7 or earlier, you must load an additional USB CDC driver. The driver can be found in third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/usb/nordic_cdc_acm_example.inf.
The examples support the following bootloaders for performing a Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU):
The support for a particular bootloader can be enabled with the following switches:
BOOTLOADER=USBBOOTLOADER=UARTBOOTLOADER=BLEYou can build the libraries with support for the USB bootloader with USB DFU trigger support in PCA10059. As this dongle uses the native USB support, you must enable it as well.
To build the libraries, run make with the following parameters:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 USB=1 BOOTLOADER=USB
See nRF52840 Dongle Programming for more details about how to use the USB bootloader.
You can build the libraries with support for native SPI Slave. To build the libraries, run make with the following parameter:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 NCP_SPI=1
With this option enabled, SPI communication between the NCP example and wpantund is possible (provided that the wpantund host supports SPI Master). To achieve that, an appropriate SPI device should be chosen in wpantund configuration file, /etc/wpantund.conf. You can find an example below.
Config:NCP:SocketPath "system:/usr/bin/spi-hdlc-adapter --gpio-int /sys/class/gpio/gpio25 /dev/spidev0.0"
In this example, spi-hdlc-adapter is a tool that you can use to communicate between NCP and wpantund over SPI. For this example, spi-hdlc-adapter is installed in /usr/bin.
The default SPI Slave pin configuration for nRF52840 is defined in examples/platforms/nrf52840/platform-config.h.
Note that the native SPI Slave support is not intended to be used with Engineering sample A of the nRF52840 chip due to single transfer size limitation.
You can prefix the compiler command using the CCPREFIX parameter. This speeds up the compilation when you use tools like ccache. Example usage:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 USB=1 CCPREFIX=ccache
By default, OpenThread uses mbedTLS library with support for CryptoCell 310 hardware acceleration of cryptographic operations. When building the application, an explicit setup is needed (error checking omitted):
mbedtls_platform_set_calloc_free(calloc, free); mbedtls_platform_setup(NULL);
When building an external application with OpenThread libraries and CryptoCell 310 hardware acceleration, use the following configuration:
third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_glue.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_glue_cc310.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_glue_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_cc310_backend.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_vanilla_backend.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedtls_tls_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedtls_x509_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedtls_base_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libnrf_cc310_platform_0.9.1.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/mbedtls_platform_configthird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/includethird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/configthird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/nrf_cc310_platform/includeMBEDTLS_CONFIG_FILE set to "nrf-config.h"MBEDTLS_USER_CONFIG_FILE set to "nrf52840-mbedtls-config.h"By default, OpenThread uses mbedTLS library with support for CryptoCell 310 hardware acceleration of cryptographic operations. You can disable CryptoCell 310 and use software cryptography instead by building OpenThread with the following parameter:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 DISABLE_BUILTIN_MBEDTLS=0 ...
When building an external application with OpenThread libraries and software cryptography, use the following configuration:
output/nrf52840/lib/libmbedcrypto.a (present after successful build)third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/mbedtls_platform_configthird_party/mbedtlsthird_party/mbedtls/repo/includeMBEDTLS_CONFIG_FILE set to "mbedtls-config.h"MBEDTLS_USER_CONFIG_FILE set to "nrf52840-mbedtls-config.h"The CryptoCell 310 platform implements an abort mechanism. By default, any fault in the CryptoCell 310 library results in the system reset. This behavior can be changed by a call to the nrf_cc310_platform_set_abort() function. This function must be called before mbedtls_platform_setup:
void nrf_cc310_platform_set_abort( nrf_cc310_platform_abort_apis_t const * const apis)
The hardware-accelerated mbedTLS library supports access from multiple threads. By default, simple blocking implementation of mutexes is used. The locking mechanism can be replaced by using the nrf_cc310_platform_set_mutexes() function. This function must be called before mbedtls_platform_setup:
void nrf_cc310_platform_set_mutexes(nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_apis_t const * const apis,
nrf_cc310_platform_mutexes_t const * const mutexes)
The sample implementation of mutexes for FreeRTOS and Zephyr operating systems can be found in nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_freertos.c and nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_zephyr.c. Both files implement the function int nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_init(void). This function must be called before mbedtls_platform_setup.
The sample implementation of the abort functionality for FreeRTOS and Zephyr operating systems can be found in nrf_cc310_platform_abort_freertos.c and nrf_cc310_platform_abort_zephyr.c. Both files implement the function void nrf_cc310_platform_abort_init(void). This function must be called before mbedtls_platform_setup.
The typical setup in the RTOS environment (error checking omitted) is as follows:
mbedtls_platform_set_calloc_free(calloc, free); nrf_cc310_platform_abort_init(); nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_init(); mbedtls_platform_setup(NULL);
When building an external application that uses RTOS with OpenThread libraries and the CryptoCell 310 hardware acceleration, use the following configuration:
third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_glue.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_glue_cc310.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_glue_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_cc310_backend.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedcrypto_vanilla_backend.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedtls_tls_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedtls_x509_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libmbedtls_base_vanilla.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/lib/libnrf_cc310_platform_0.9.1.athird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/mbedtls_platform_configthird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/includethird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/configthird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/nrf_cc310_platform/includeMBEDTLS_CONFIG_FILE set to "nrf-config.h"MBEDTLS_USER_CONFIG_FILE set to "nrf52840-mbedtls-config.h"nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_freertos.c or nrf_cc310_platform_mutex_zephyr.c from third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/nrf_cc310_platform/src, depending on the RTOS used.nrf_cc310_platform_abort_freertos.c or nrf_cc310_platform_abort_zephyr.c from third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/nrf_cc310_platform/src, depending on the RTOS used.See mbedTls Thread Safety and Multi Threading for more details.
By default, the software-only mbedTLS library is built without support for multiple threads. You can enable this built-in support by building OpenThread with the following parameter:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 MBEDTLS_THREADING=1
The simple mutex definition is used as shown below:
typedef void * mbedtls_threading_mutex_t;
However, you can modify it, by providing a path to a header file with proper definition. To do that, build OpenThread with the following parameter:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 MBEDTLS_THREADING=1 MBEDTLS_THREADING_MUTEX_DEF="path_to_a_header_file_with_mutex_definition.h"
When building an external application that uses RTOS with OpenThread libraries and software cryptography, use the following configuration:
output/nrf52840/lib/libmbedcrypto.a (present after successful build)third_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/mbedtls_platform_configthird_party/mbedtlsthird_party/mbedtls/repo/includethird_party/NordicSemiconductor/libraries/nrf_security/include/software-only-threadingMBEDTLS_CONFIG_FILE set to "mbedtls-config.h"MBEDTLS_USER_CONFIG_FILE set to "nrf52840-mbedtls-config.h"MBEDTLS_THREADING_CMBEDTLS_THREADING_ALTSee mbedTls Thread Safety and Multi Threading for more details.
When the Thread device is configured to obtain the Thread Network security credentials with either Thread Commissioning or an out-of-band method, the extended MAC address should be constructed out of the globally unique IEEE EUI-64.
The IEEE EUI-64 address consists of two parts:
By default, the device uses Nordic Semiconductor's MA-L (f4-ce-36). You can modify it by overwriting the OPENTHREAD_CONFIG_STACK_VENDOR_OUI define, located in the openthread-core-nrf52840-config.h file. This value must be publicly registered by the IEEE Registration Authority.
You can also provide the full IEEE EUI-64 address by providing a custom otPlatRadioGetIeeeEui64 function. To do this, define the flag OPENTHREAD_CONFIG_ENABLE_PLATFORM_EUI64_CUSTOM_SOURCE.
After the Thread Network security credentials have been successfully obtained, the device uses randomly generated extended MAC address.
Flash the compiled binaries onto nRF52840 using nrfjprog which is part of the nRF Command Line Tools.
$ nrfjprog -f nrf52 --chiperase --program output/nrf52840/bin/ot-cli-ftd.hex --reset
To test the example:
Prepare two boards with the flashed CLI Example (as shown above). The CLI FTD example uses the direct UART connection.
Open a terminal connection on two boards:
a. Start a terminal emulator like screen.
b. Connect to the used COM port with the following direct UART settings:
Baud rate: 115200
8 data bits
1 stop bit
No parity
HW flow control: RTS/CTS This allows you to view the raw UART output.
On Linux system a port name should be called e.g. /dev/ttyACM0 or /dev/ttyACM1.
c. Run the following command to connect to a board.
screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200
Now you are connected with the CLI.
Use the following commands to form a network on the first board.
> dataset init new Done > dataset Active Timestamp: 1 Channel: 13 Channel Mask: 07fff800 Ext PAN ID: d63e8e3e495ebbc3 Mesh Local Prefix: fd3d:b50b:f96d:722d/64 Master Key: dfd34f0f05cad978ec4e32b0413038ff Network Name: OpenThread-8f28 PAN ID: 0x8f28 PSKc: c23a76e98f1a6483639b1ac1271e2e27 Security Policy: 0, onrcb Done > dataset commit active Done > ifconfig up Done > thread start Done
After a couple of seconds the node will become a Leader of the network.
> state leader
Use the following commands to attach to the network on the second board.
> dataset masterkey dfd34f0f05cad978ec4e32b0413038ff Done > dataset commit active Done > ifconfig up Done > thread start Done
After a couple of seconds the second node will attach and become a Child.
> state child
List all IPv6 addresses of the first board.
> ipaddr fd3d:b50b:f96d:722d:0:ff:fe00:fc00 fd3d:b50b:f96d:722d:0:ff:fe00:c00 fd3d:b50b:f96d:722d:7a73:bff6:9093:9117 fe80:0:0:0:6c41:9001:f3d6:4148 Done
Choose one of them and send an ICMPv6 ping from the second board.
> ping fd3d:b50b:f96d:722d:7a73:bff6:9093:9117 16 bytes from fd3d:b50b:f96d:722d:558:f56b:d688:799: icmp_seq=1 hlim=64 time=24ms
For a list of all available commands, visit OpenThread CLI Reference README.md.
SEGGER J-Link tools allow to debug and flash generated firmware using on-board debugger or external one.
By default, the OpenThread‘s logging module provides functions to output logging information over SEGGER’s Real Time Transfer (RTT).
You can set the desired log level by using the OPENTHREAD_CONFIG_LOG_LEVEL define.
To enable the highest verbosity level, append FULL_LOGS flag to the make command:
$ make -f examples/Makefile-nrf52840 FULL_LOGS=1
J-Link RTT Viewer. The configuration window appears.NRF52840_XXAA.SWD.JLinkExe to connect to the target. For example:JLinkExe -device NRF52840_XXAA -if SWD -speed 4000 -autoconnect 1 -SelectEmuBySN <SEGGER_ID> -RTTTelnetPort 19021
JLinkRTTTelnet to obtain the RTT logs from the connected device in a separate console. For example:JLinkRTTClient -RTTTelnetPort 19021
Depending on your version, due to a known issue in SEGGER's J-Link firmware, you might experience data corruption or data drops if you use the serial port. You can avoid this issue by disabling the Mass Storage Device.
J-Link Commander. The configuration window appears.NRF52840_XXAA.SWD.MSDDisable
JLinkExe to connect to the target. For example:JLinkExe -device NRF52840_XXAA -if SWD -speed 4000 -autoconnect 1 -SelectEmuBySN <SEGGER_ID>
MSDDisable
By default, SEGGER J-Link automatically detects at runtime whether the target is using Hardware Flow Control (HWFC).
The automatic HWFC detection is done by driving P0.07 (Clear to Send - CTS) from the interface MCU and evaluating the state of P0.05 (Request to Send - RTS) when the first data is sent or received. If the state of P0.05 (RTS) is high, it is assumed that HWFC is not used.
To avoid potential race conditions, you can force HWFC and bypass the runtime auto-detection.
J-Link Commander. The configuration window appears.NRF52840_XXAA.SWD.SetHWFC Force
JLinkExe to connect to the target. For example:JLinkExe -device NRF52840_XXAA -if SWD -speed 4000 -autoconnect 1 -SelectEmuBySN <SEGGER_ID>
SetHWFC Force
You can find more details here.
nRF52840 port extends OpenThread Diagnostics Module.
You can read about all the features here.
The radio driver comes with documentation that describes the operation of state machines in this module. To open the *.uml sequence diagrams, use PlantUML.
The following development kits have been used for testing and verification:
The following toolchains have been used for testing and verification:
The following OpenThread commits have been verified with nRF52840 and nRF52811 examples by Nordic Semiconductor:
2279ef6 - 23.05.2019 (the latest checked)23ff101 - 22.03.2019704511c - 18.09.2018ec59d7e - 06.04.2018a89eb88 - 16.11.20176a15261 - 29.06.2017030efba - 22.04.2017de48acf - 02.03.201750db58d - 23.01.2017Use nRF5 Software Development Kit (SDK) for Thread and Zigbee when developing Thread products with Nordic Semiconductor's advanced nRF52840, nRF52833 or nRF52811 SoCs.
The nRF5 SDK for Thread and Zigbee includes: