SiLabs EFR32BG22-BRD4184(A/B) (Thunderboard EFR32BG22)

BRD4184 is a board based on EFR32BG22 SoC and is one of EFR32 Thunderboard-style boards. It comes in two revisions, which differ from each other slightly: BRD4184A and BRD4184B.

Hardware

• EFR32BG22 Blue Gecko Wireless SoC with upto 76.8 MHz operating frequency

• ARM® Cortex® M33 core with 32 kB RAM and 512 kB Flash

• Macronix ultra low power 8-Mbit SPI flash (MX25R8035F)

• 2.4 GHz ceramic antenna for wireless transmission

• Silicon Labs Si7021 relative humidity and temperature sensor

• Silicon Labs Si1133 UV index and ambient light sensor (EFR32BG22-BRD4184A)

• Vishay VEML6035 ambient light sensor (EFR32BG22-BRD4184B)

• Silicon Labs Si7210 hall effect sensor

• TDK InvenSense ICM-20648 6-axis inertial sensor

• Two Knowles SPK0641HT4H-1 MEMS microphones with PDM output (EFR32BG22-BRD4184B)

• One LED and one push button

• Power enable signals and isolation switches for ultra low power operation

• On-board SEGGER J-Link debugger for easy programming and debugging, which includes a USB virtual COM port and Packet Trace Interface (PTI)

• Mini Simplicity connector for access to energy profiling and advanced wireless network debugging

• Breakout pads for GPIO access and connection to external hardware

• Reset button

• Automatic switch-over between USB and battery power

• CR2032 coin cell holder and external battery connector

For more information about the EFR32BG SoC and Thunderboard EFR32BG22 board:

• EFR32BG22 Website

• EFR32BG22 Datasheet

• EFR32xG22 Reference Manual

• Thunderboard EFR32BG22 Website

• EFR32BG22-BRD4184A User Guide

• EFR32BG22-BRD4184B User Guide

• EFR32BG22-BRD4184A Schematics

• EFR32BG22-BRD4184B Schematics

Supported Features

The efr32bg22_brd4184a/b board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Interface	Controller	Driver/Component
MPU	on-chip	memory protection unit
NVIC	on-chip	nested vector interrupt controller
SYSTICK	on-chip	systick
COUNTER	on-chip	stimer
SPI(M/S)	on-chip	spi
FLASH	on-chip	flash memory
GPIO	on-chip	gpio
UART	on-chip	serial
WATCHDOG	on-chip	watchdog
TRNG	on-chip	true random number generator
I2C(M/S)	on-chip	i2c
RADIO	on-chip	bluetooth

The default configuration can be found in boards/silabs/efr32_thunderboard/efr32bg22_brd4184a_defconfig and boards/silabs/efr32_thunderboard/efr32bg22_brd4184b_defconfig

Connections and IOs

The EFR32BG SoC has six gpio controllers (PORTA, PORTB, PORTC, PORTD, PORTE and PORTF).

In the following tables, the column Name contains Pin names. For example, PE2 means Pin number 2 on PORTE and #27 represents the location bitfield, as used in the board’s and microcontroller’s datasheets and manuals.

There are two variants of this board, “A” and “B”. Please take a look at your PCB, to determine which one you have, as the GPIO pin bindings vary between those two.

BRD4184A:

Name	Function	Usage
PB0	GPIO	LED0 (YELLOW)
PB1	GPIO	SW0 Push Button PB0
PA5	UART_TX	UART TX Console VCOM_TX US1_TX #1
PA6	UART_RX	UART RX Console VCOM_RX US1_RX #1

BRD4184B:

Name	Function	Usage
PA4	GPIO	LED0 (YELLOW)
PB3	GPIO	SW0 Push Button PB0
PA5	UART_TX	UART TX Console VCOM_TX US1_TX #1
PA6	UART_RX	UART RX Console VCOM_RX US1_RX #1

System Clock

The EFR32BG SoC is configured to use the 38.4 MHz external oscillator on the board.

Programming and Debugging

Flashing an application

Connect your device to your host computer using the USB port. The sample application Hello World is used for this example. Build the Zephyr kernel and application, then flash it to the device:

BRD4184A:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b efr32bg22_brd4184a samples/hello_world
west flash

BRD4184B:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b efr32bg22_brd4184b samples/hello_world
west flash

Note

west flash requires SEGGER J-Link software to be installed on you host computer.

Open a serial terminal (minicom, putty, etc.) with the following settings:

• Speed: 115200

• Data: 8 bits

• Parity: None

• Stop bits: 1

Reset the board and you should be able to see on the corresponding Serial Port the following message:

Hello World! efr32bg22_brd4184

Bluetooth

To use the BLE function, run the command below to retrieve necessary binary blobs from the SiLabs HAL repository.

west blobs fetch silabs

Then build the Zephyr kernel and a Bluetooth sample with the following command. The Bluetooth: Observer sample application is used in this example.

BRD4184A:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b efr32bg22_brd4184a samples/bluetooth/observer

BRD4184B:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b efr32bg22_brd4184b samples/bluetooth/observer