RTL8721F EVB

Tags: chip:rtl8721f arch:arm vendor:realtek

Todo

Add a photo of the RTL8721F EVB board here as rtl8721f_evb.png in this directory, referenced with a .. figure:: directive.

The RTL8721F EVB is a Realtek RTL8721F evaluation board. NuttX runs on the KM4TZ application core — an Arm Cortex-M55-compatible core running at up to 320 MHz. See the RTL8721F chip documentation for the full SoC specifications and the vendor-SDK dependency.

Features

  • RTL8721F: Arm Cortex-M55-compatible KM4TZ core up to 320 MHz, 512 KB SRAM, 4 MB NOR flash

  • Wi-Fi 6 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ax), dual-band 2.4/5 GHz station and SoftAP

  • SPI NOR flash (XIP)

  • LOG-UART console

Supported in this NuttX port:

  • NSH shell over the LOG-UART console

  • littlefs persistent storage mounted at /data (a dedicated SPI NOR flash partition)

  • Wi-Fi station and SoftAP through the wapi tool

  • DHCP client (STA) and DHCP server (SoftAP)

Buttons and LEDs

This NuttX port does not wire any user buttons or LEDs.

Configurations

Build and flash any of these per the RTL8721F build instructions; for the CMake build, source . tools/ameba/env.sh rtl8721f_evb first (the make build needs no sourcing).

$ ./tools/configure.sh rtl8721f_evb:<config-name>

gpio

Minimal NSH with the GPIO driver and the gpio example enabled (no Wi-Fi). The board registers three pins from its pin table (see boards/arm/rtl8721f/rtl8721f_evb/src/rtl8721f_gpio.c): an output at /dev/gpio0, an input at /dev/gpio1 and an interrupt pin at /dev/gpio2. Edit that table to match a board’s wiring. Exercise them with the example:

nsh> gpio -o 1 /dev/gpio0     # drive the output high
nsh> gpio /dev/gpio1          # read the input
nsh> gpio -w 1 /dev/gpio2     # wait for a falling-edge interrupt

Pins are encoded with the AMEBA_PA() / AMEBA_PB() helpers from arch/arm/src/common/ameba/ameba_gpio.h (port A/B, pin 0-31), matching the Ameba SDK PinName layout.

nsh

Networking-enabled NSH with littlefs at /data and the wapi Wi-Fi tool. The console is the LOG-UART at 1500000 8N1 (the rate is configured by the bootloader and inherited by NuttX). The Wi-Fi examples below are available from this configuration.

Wi-Fi

Station (connect to an AP):

nsh> wapi psk    wlan0 <password> 3
nsh> wapi essid  wlan0 <ssid> 1
nsh> renew wlan0

SoftAP (become an access point, with a DHCP server for clients):

nsh> wapi mode   wlan0 3
nsh> wapi psk    wlan0 <password> 3
nsh> wapi essid  wlan0 <ssid> 1
nsh> ifconfig    wlan0 192.168.4.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
nsh> dhcpd_start wlan0

Stop the SoftAP with wapi essid wlan0 <ssid> 0.

License Exceptions

This board depends on Realtek vendor code that is not part of NuttX and is subject to its own license:

  • The prebuilt Wi-Fi / Bluetooth firmware image and the Realtek ameba-rtos SDK libraries/headers linked into the image. See the SDK’s own license; the SDK is auto-fetched and is not redistributed in the NuttX tree.