NXP MR-CANHUBK3

Overview

NXP MR-CANHUBK3 [1] is an evaluation board for mobile robotics applications such as autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and automated guided vehicles (AGV). It features an NXP S32K344 [2] general-purpose automotive microcontroller based on an Arm Cortex-M7 core (Lock-Step).

Hardware

• NXP S32K344

  • Arm Cortex-M7 (Lock-Step), 160 MHz (Max.)

  • 4 MB of program flash, with ECC

  • 320 KB RAM, with ECC

  • Ethernet 100 Mbps, CAN FD, FlexIO, QSPI

  • 12-bit 1 Msps ADC, 16-bit eMIOS timer

• NXP FS26 Safety System Basis Chip [3]

• Interfaces:

  • Console UART

  • 6x CAN FD

  • 100Base-T1 Ethernet

  • JST-GH connectors and I/O headers for I2C, SPI, GPIO, PWM, etc.

More information about the hardware and design resources can be found at NXP MR-CANHUBK3 [1] website.

Supported Features

The mr_canhubk3 board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface	Controller	Driver/Component
SIUL2	on-chip	pinctrl gpio external interrupt controller
WKPU	on-chip	interrupt controller
LPUART	on-chip	serial
QSPI	on-chip	flash
FLEXCAN	on-chip	can
LPI2C	on-chip	i2c
ADC SAR	on-chip	adc
LPSPI	on-chip	spi
WDT	FS26 SBC	watchdog
EMAC	on-chip	ethernet mdio
eMIOS	on-chip	pwm
EDMA	on-chip	dma

The default configuration can be found in the Kconfig file boards/nxp/mr_canhubk3/mr_canhubk3_defconfig.

Connections and IOs

Each GPIO port is divided into two banks: low bank, from pin 0 to 15, and high bank, from pin 16 to 31. For example, PTA2 is the pin 2 of gpioa_l (low bank), and PTA20 is the pin 4 of gpioa_h (high bank).

The GPIO controller provides the option to route external input pad interrupts to either the SIUL2 EIRQ or WKPU interrupt controllers, as supported by the SoC. By default, GPIO interrupts are routed to SIUL2 EIRQ interrupt controller, unless they are explicity configured to be directed to the WKPU interrupt controller, as outlined in dts/bindings/gpio/nxp,s32-gpio.yaml.

To find information about which GPIOs are compatible with each interrupt controller, refer to the device reference manual.

Note

It is important to highlight that the current board configuration lacks support for wake-up events and power-management features. WKPU functionality is restricted solely to serving as an interrupt controller.

LEDs

The MR-CANHUBK3 board has one user RGB LED:

Devicetree node	Color	Pin	Pin Functions
led0 / user_led1_red	Red	PTE14	FXIO D7 / EMIOS0 CH19
led1 / user_led1_green	Green	PTA27	FXIO D5 / EMIOS1 CH10 / EMIOS2 CH10
led2 / user_led1_blue	Blue	PTE12	FXIO D8 / EMIOS1 CH5

In addition to the RGB LED, the MR-CANHUBK3 board has six red LEDs, each located next to one of the CAN connectors:

Devicetree node	Color	Pin	Pin Functions
can_led0	Red	PTC18	FXIO D6 / FXIO D12 / EMIOS2 CH12
can_led1	Red	PTE5	FXIO D7 / EMIOS1 CH5 / EMIOS0 CH 19
can_led2	Red	PTD20	EMIOS1 CH17 / EMIOS2 CH0
can_led3	Red	PTB24	FXIO D5 / EMIOS1 CH20 / EMIOS2 CH20
can_led4	Red	PTB26	FXIO D7 / EMIOS1 CH22 / EMIOS2 CH22
can_led5	Red	PTD31	FXIO D6 / EMIOS2 CH22

The user can control the LEDs in any way. An output of 0 illuminates the LED.

Buttons

The MR-CANHUBK3 board has two user buttons:

Devicetree node	Label	Pin	Pin Functions
sw0 / user_button_1	SW1	PTD15	EIRQ31
sw0 / user_button_2	SW2	PTA25	EIRQ5 / WKPU34

System Clock

The Arm Cortex-M7 (Lock-Step) are configured to run at 160 MHz.

Serial Console

By default, the serial console is provided through lpuart2 on the 7-pin DCD-LZ debug connector P6.

Connector	Pin	Pin Function
P6.2	PTA9	LPUART2_TX
P6.3	PTA8	LPUART2_RX

CAN

CAN is provided through FLEXCAN interface with 6 instances.

Devicetree node	Pin	Pin Function	Bus Connector
flexcan0	PTA6 PTA7	PTA6_CAN0_RX PTA7_CAN0_TX	P12/P13
flexcan1	PTC9 PTC8	PTC9_CAN0_RX PTC8_CAN0_TX	P14/P15
flexcan2	PTE25 PTE24	PTE25_CAN0_RX PTE24_CAN0_TX	P16/P17
flexcan3	PTC29 PTC28	PTC29_CAN0_RX PTC28_CAN0_TX	P18/019
flexcan4	PTC31 PTC30	PTC31_CAN0_RX PTC30_CAN0_TX	P20/P21
flexcan5	PTC11 PTC10	PTC11_CAN0_RX PTC10_CAN0_TX	P22/P23

Note

There is limitation by HAL SDK, so CAN only has support maximum 64 message buffers (MBs) and support maximum 32 message buffers for concurrent active instances with 8 bytes payload. We need to pay attention to configuration options:

1. CONFIG_CAN_MAX_MB must be less or equal than the maximum number of message buffers that is according to the table below.

2. CONFIG_CAN_MAX_FILTER must be less or equal than CONFIG_CAN_MAX_MB.

Devicetree node	Payload	Hardware support	Software support
flexcan0	8 bytes 16 bytes 32 bytes 64 bytes	96 MBs 63 MBs 36 MBs 21 MBs	64 MBs 42 MBs 24 MBs 14 MBs
flexcan1	8 bytes 16 bytes 32 bytes 64 bytes	64 MBs 42 MBs 24 MBs 14 MBs	64 MBs 42 MBs 24 MBs 14 MBs
flexcan2	8 bytes 16 bytes 32 bytes 64 bytes	64 MBs 42 MBs 24 MBs 14 MBs	64 MBs 42 MBs 24 MBs 14 MBs
flexcan3	8 bytes 16 bytes 32 bytes 64 bytes	32 MBs 21 MBs 12 MBs 7 MBs	32 MBs 21 MBs 12 MBs 7 MBs
flexcan4	8 bytes 16 bytes 32 bytes 64 bytes	32 MBs 21 MBs 12 MBs 7 MBs	32 MBs 21 MBs 12 MBs 7 MBs
flexcan5	8 bytes 16 bytes 32 bytes 64 bytes	32 MBs 21 MBs 12 MBs 7 MBs	32 MBs 21 MBs 12 MBs 7 MBs

Note

A CAN bus usually requires 120 Ohm termination at both ends of the bus. This may be accomplished using one of the included CAN termination boards. For more details, refer to the section 6.3 CAN Connectors in the Hardware User Manual of NXP MR-CANHUBK3 [1].

I2C

I2C is provided through LPI2C interface with 2 instances lpi2c0 and lpi2c1 on corresponding connectors P4, P3.

Connector	Pin	Pin Function
P3.2	PTD9	LPI2C1_SCL
P3.3	PTD8	LPI2C1_SDA
P4.3	PTD14	LPI2C0_SCL
P4.4	PTD13	LPI2C0_SDA

The accompanying display board can be connected to lpi2c0 via connector P4.

ADC

ADC is provided through ADC SAR controller with 3 instances. ADC channels are divided into 3 groups (precision, standard and external).

Note

All channels of an instance only run on 1 group channel at the same time.

FS26 SBC Watchdog

On normal operation after the board is powered on, there is a window of 256 ms on which the FS26 watchdog must be serviced with a good token refresh, otherwise the watchdog will signal a reset to the MCU. This board configuration enables the FS26 watchdog driver that handles this initialization.

Note

The FS26 can also be started in debug mode (watchdog disabled) following these steps:

1. Power off the board.

2. Remove the jumper JP1 (pins 1-2 open), which is connected by default.

3. Power on the board.

4. Reconnect the jumper JP1 (pins 1-2 shorted).

External Flash

The on-board MX25L6433F 64M-bit multi-I/O Serial NOR Flash memory is connected to the QSPI controller port A1. This board configuration selects it as the default flash controller.

Ethernet

This board has a single instance of Ethernet Media Access Controller (EMAC) interfacing with a NXP TJA1103 [4] 100Base-T1 Ethernet PHY. Currently, there is limited driver for this PHY that allows for overiding the default pin strapping configuration for the PHY (RMII, master, autonomous mode enabled, polarity correction enabled) to slave mode.

The 100Base-T1 signals are available in connector P9 and can be converted to 100Base-T using a Ethernet media converter such as RDDRONE-T1ADAPT [5].

Programming and Debugging

Applications for the mr_canhubk3 board can be built in the usual way as documented in Building an Application.

This board configuration supports Lauterbach TRACE32 [6], SEGGER J-Link [7] and pyOCD [8] West runners for flashing and debugging applications. Follow the steps described in Lauterbach TRACE32 Debug Host Tools, J-Link Debug Host Tools and pyOCD Debug Host Tools, to setup the flash and debug host tools for these runners, respectively. The default runner is J-Link.

Flashing

Run the west flash command to flash the application using SEGGER J-Link. Alternatively, run west flash -r trace32 to use Lauterbach TRACE32, or west flash -r pyocd` to use pyOCD.

The Lauterbach TRACE32 runner supports additional options that can be passed through command line:

west flash -r trace32 --startup-args elfFile=<elf_path> loadTo=<flash/sram>
   eraseFlash=<yes/no> verifyFlash=<yes/no>

Where:

• <elf_path> is the path to the Zephyr application ELF in the output directory

• loadTo=flash loads the application to the SoC internal program flash (CONFIG_XIP must be set), and loadTo=sram load the application to SRAM. Default is flash.

• eraseFlash=yes erases the whole content of SoC internal flash before the application is downloaded to either Flash or SRAM. This routine takes time to execute. Default is no.

• verifyFlash=yes verify the SoC internal flash content after programming (use together with loadTo=flash). Default is no.

For example, to erase and verify flash content:

west flash -r trace32 --startup-args elfFile=build/zephyr/zephyr.elf loadTo=flash eraseFlash=yes verifyFlash=yes

Debugging

Run the west debug command to start a GDB session using SEGGER J-Link. Alternatively, run west debug -r trace32 or west debug -r pyocd to launch the Lauterbach TRACE32 or pyOCD software debugging interface respectively.

References

[1] (1,2,3)

https://www.nxp.com/design/development-boards/automotive-development-platforms/s32k-mcu-platforms/s32k344-evaluation-board-for-mobile-robotics-incorporating-100baset1-and-six-can-fd:MR-CANHUBK344

[2]

https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/s32-automotive-platform/s32k-auto-general-purpose-mcus/s32k3-microcontrollers-for-automotive-general-purpose:S32K3

[3]

https://www.nxp.com/products/power-management/pmics-and-sbcs/safety-sbcs/safety-system-basis-chip-with-low-power-fit-for-asil-d:FS26

[4]

https://www.nxp.com/products/interfaces/ethernet-/automotive-ethernet-phys/asil-b-compliant-100base-t1-ethernet-phy:TJA1103

[5]

https://www.nxp.com/products/interfaces/ethernet-/automotive-ethernet-phys/ethernet-media-converter-for-drones-rovers-mobile-robotics-and-automotive:RDDRONE-T1ADAPT

[6]

https://www.lauterbach.com

[7]

https://wiki.segger.com/NXP_S32K3xx

[8]

https://pyocd.io/