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Technical Details

Layout

  1. Newracom™ NRC7292 WiFi HaLow™ SOC (IEEE 802.11ah draft 8.0 compliant)
  2. Qorvo™ RFFM6901 front-end
  3. IPEX/U.FL antenna connector
  4. mikroBUS™ M-size form factor
  5. Connectors for UART and mode select
  6. 3× LED

Block diagram

Dimension

This module is following MikroBUS standard. Please see the page 12 of MikroBUS official document: mikrobus-standard-specification-v200.pdf

Pinout

LED

Label name Description
POWER When the module is powered up, this GREEN led turns on
TX ORANGE led, controlled by GPIO 02
RX RED led, controlled by GPIO 03

GPIO

NRC7292 GPIO # Default Pin Number Description
02 UART2 RTS , connected to LED:TX
03 UART2 CTS , connected to LED:RX
16 5 I²C SCL
17 3 I²C SDA

Note

Known NRC7292 GPIO's range is [0..31]

UART

NRC7292 has 4 UART channels. We have two available in this PiHAT device.

NRC7292 defines AHMB7292S Description Position
UART0 Undefined
UART1 Undefined
UART2 RX2, TX2 available for STANDALONE MODE
UART3 4-pin UART header for DOWNLOAD MODE use

Mode

NRC7292 has 3 modes: HOST MODE, STANDALONE MODE, and DOWNLOAD MODE

HOST MODE

In this mode, the target device will act as a SPI slave device. The host device (ex: Raspberry Pi) need a proper driver to bring it up and controll it.

STANDALONE MODE

In this mode, the target device doesn't need external drivers. It will be up and running by itself while power on. Since it's self-running device, it required a built-in firmware to define its routines and behaviors.

Other devices can talk to this device throungh a UART interface, send commands and receives data with it.

DOWNLOAD MODE

This mode is for developers to upload firmware to this target device, so that it can be properly running in STANDALONE MODE.

There is an official document introduce how to utilize this mode, please see reference below:

Note

For more details, please read the upstream document UG-7292-004-Standalone SDK.pdf , page 18, chapter of "3 How to download compiled binaries"

How to switch modes

Mode GND M0 M1 3v3 M2 comment
Host 1 0 0 Default
Standalone M0 -> 0 0 M2 -> 1 Short (M0,GND) and (3v3,M2)
DOWNLOAD 1 1 <- M1 0 Short (M1,3v3)