The firmware running on intelligent and secure IoT products is quite sophisticated. Users who are beginning embedded and IoT application development using RA MCU innovation kits for IoT can utilize 600+ example projects as building blocks to create feature-rich IoT and embedded proof-of-concepts quickly and easily. Example projects for RA kits allow for structured and systematic exploration of the features available on the RA microcontrollers so that the users can provide state-of-art functionality to their customers.
Example Projects for RA MCU Innovation Kits for IoT
Example projects are essentially code examples that demonstrate how different peripherals integrated in the RA microcontrollers can be configured, initialized, and operated for typical operating scenarios.
Many example projects are common across RA kits, while some are kit specific. Common example projects allow for knowledge reuse as one transitions between the kits and help shorten the learning curve. Kit-specific example projects typically demonstrate features available on a given kit. There are more than 600 example projects for different kits across various tool chains, and many more are developed regularly.
Sampling for example projects for RA kits
Users can quickly program the example projects onto their RA kits using the Renesas Flash Programmer or Segger® J-Flash Lite programming utilities without having to install a development toolchain or an IDE. These utilities can be downloaded free of cost from Renesas and Segger websites.
Example project distribution: The example projects for RA kits are grouped into a kit-specific example project bundle that can be downloaded as one compressed folder from the Documentation and Download sections of the kit webpage, for example: renesas.com/ra/ek-ra6m5. Individual example projects are also available on GitHub for alternative access.
Example projects distribution on renesas.com and GitHub
Example project bundle contents: The example project bundle of a RA kit consists of example projects supported on that kit and an overview document with useful information. The overview document lists all the example projects and supported toolchains and includes a pointer to the Example Project Usage Guide that provides step-by-step instructions to import, build, and debug the example projects and program them onto a RA kit.
Example project contents: Each example project consists of a read me file which includes the project overview, hardware settings, and useful notes. The example projects also contain IDE-specific project files that users can use with the supported IDEs to easily import the projects. Each IDE project also consists of a pre-built HEX file that users can directly program onto their RA kits using supported flash programming utilities such as RFP and J-Flash Lite. Doing so is particularly useful when users want to test drive the example project without having to install the toolchains on their computer and examining into source code.
Supported toolchains: The supported toolchains are Renesas e² studio, Keil MDK, and IAR Embedded Workbench. All example projects are supported on the Renesas e² studio. Example projects on other toolchains are supported case-by-case.
Example projects for RA kits serve as building blocks for the users to create feature-rich IoT and embedded application for their end-products. Users are invited to join the Renesas community on the RA support forum. This is where they can ask questions and get assistance from Renesas experts and collaborate with other members of the Renesas community.
We hope that users enjoy innovating with the RA microcontroller kits as much as we have enjoyed developing them. Users can order their favorite kit and bring their big ideas to life!
Learn more at renesas.com/ra/kits