Renesas Development Boards

Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board

I got a Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board (a.k.a Self-capacitance Button/Wheel/Slider Electrode Board, model number RTK0EG0019B01002BJ), along with a RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board, in an eBay job lot, they both appear to be originally from a kit called Capacitive Touch Evaluation System for RA2L1, which you can read about in my write-up of the RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board. The Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board consists of a PCB with a plastic front held together in each corner with plastic fasteners.

I’ll now describe the main features of the PCB but note there may be revisions which have minor differences.

PCB top

Near the top it has written:

RENESAS
Self-capacitance
Button/Wheel/Slider Electrode Board

At the bottom it has written:

RTK0EG0019B01002BJ v1.1b Made in Japan

The PCB is also split into the following sections:

Wheel section with labels TS_W1 to TS_W4.
Button section with labels TS_B1 to TS_B3.
Slider section with labels TS_S1 to TS_S5.

On the left side of the PCB is CN1 2x8 male header, and CN2 2x20 male header. For interfacing with Cap Touch CPU board.

PCB bottom

Various test points.
LED1 to LED16 (they shine through to the front side).
Four feet.
A label with text: 0IS0080.
Footprints for U1 to U3, according to schematic they are 74LVCH1T45GW-DNF dual supply translating transceiver 3-state, but it’s not clear where they are actually located.

As mentioned, I got the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board secondhand and there is some minor cosmetic damage to the top and a few pins of CN1 are bent, likely when it was removed from the Cap Touch CPU board.

Please see my article on the RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board for testing of the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board.

EK-RA2E1

The EK-RA2E1 evaluation kit was designed to explore the features of the RA2E1 MCU (Microcontroller), based on the Arm Cortex-M23, which you can learn more about at:

https://www.renesas.com/en/products/ra2e1

For the EK-RA2E1 kit product page please go to:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/ek-ra2e1

At the time of writing this article in 2025 the board is active and selling for $56.49 (£41.39). The page has links for the Quick Start Guide, manual, schematic, and software. The manual is from 2021 and since I got the board from a job lot with PCBs from around 2022 the board is possibly from 2021.

To help users get started quickly the EK-RA2E1 board comes pre-programmed with a Quick Start Example project (the source code is provided in the EK-RA2E1 example project bundle found on the previously linked to page).

The following video gives an overview of the RA2E1 board and the Quick Start Example project:

In 2025 I got from eBay a job lot of electronics which appears to be from Elstat Limited, a UK company liquidated in 2024, that specialised in coolers according to the information I found online. In the job lot were a number of Renesas development boards and accessories that it seems were very likely used by Elstat to prototype some of their products. The Renesas items I got are as follows; EK-RA2E1, EK-RA2L1, FPB-RA2E1, Capacitive touch application board, and RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board. Please see those sections for more information.

Back to the EK-RA2E1, I will describe the parts of interest of the kit I have but note that your kit may differ slightly due to different revisions.

On the top of the box it says:

EVALUATION KIT
EK-RA2E1
Version 1
Evaluation Kit for RA2E1 MCU Group
Renesas RA Family of 32-bit MCUs with Arm Core
Part Number:
RTK7EKA2E1S00001BE

The label shows it was bought from Farnell on 01/07/22.

The box underside lists the board features including the Quick Start Example project, along with the URL renesas.com/ra/ek-ra2e1. It also mentions the box contents (EK-RA2E1 board and micro USB cable).

Next, lets look at components of interest on the EK-RA2E1 board:

PCB top side

Top half:

GND x2, 3.3V, +5V IN ‘hook’ connections.
J25 and J26 2x6 Female PMOD connectors x2.
J20 2x10 Male DEBUG3 connector.
J13 2x5 Male DEBUG2 connector.
J10 Female micro USB DEBUG1 connector.
J21 and J22 Mikro BUS (two Female 2x8 connectors).
J27 and J28 Two Seeed grove connectors 4-way Male JST.
J30 QWIIC SparkFun 4-way Male miniature JST.
J14 unpopulated connector labelled as 'J-LINK S124 RE-PROG' on schematic.
J18, J19, J23, J24 Arduino Female headers (8-way, 6-way, 10-way, 8-way).
S1 and S2 user buttons, and RESET button.
LED1 - LED3 (blue, green, red) user LEDs, power LED4 (white), and debug LED5 (orange).
U8 DZJA XHSS. ISL80102IRAJZ according to schematic, adjustable linear voltage regulator IC.
U7 R7FS124773. Arm Cortex-M0+ Core 128KB flash 16KB SRAM IC. Datasheet:

https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/948672/RENESAS/R7FS124773A01CNF.html

Various headers with jumpers and test points

On the PCB it has written:

EK RA2E1
Version 1
P/N RTK7EKA2E1S00001BE
renesas.com/ra/ek-ra2e1

Bottom  half:

TP1 and TP3 MCU CURRENT hook points.
J1 and J3 2x7 Male header RA MCU interface signals.
J2 2x20 Male header RA MCU interface signals.
Y1 20.000MHz crystal.
Y2 32.768KHz crystal.
U1 R7FA2E1A92DFM. Arm Cortex-M23 core 16KB SRAM 128KB flash IC. Datasheet:

https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/ra2e1-group-datasheet

On the PCB it has written:

RA2E1 MCU
P/N R7FA2E1A92DFM
48MHz, 128KB Code Flash, 16KB SRAM, LQFP64

PCB bottom side

Various connector pinouts
Various pads can be broken for options

On the PCB it has written:

RENESAS
EK-RA2E1
Version 1

As written on the PCB underside the board is split into the larger top half 'System Control & Ecosystem Access' and the smaller bottom half 'MCU Native Pin Access'.

Please note that only a few R7FA2E1A92DFM GPIO pins are 5V tolerant when the chip is run off 3.3V as is the case for the development board - please see the R7FA2E1A92DFM datasheet for details.

You can power the EK-RA2E1 board through the USB debug port (J10) using a micro USB cable connected to a 5V power source. The white power LED (LED4) will light up and the Quick Start example project will begin to execute blinking the blue user LED (LED1).

I will now go over a few details from the Quick Start Guide:

Page 7: the board originally came with a type-A male to micro-B male cable.

Page 8: you can change both the frequency and intensity of LED1 when the Quick Start Example Project is running by using  the user buttons S1 and S2. The supported frequencies are 1Hz, 5Hz, and 10Hz, and the supported intensities are 10%, 50%, and 90%, the default is 1Hz and 10% intensity. Additionally, when the board is connected to a PC via the debug USB connector Quick Start Example Project the kit information, MCU die temperature and user LED blinking frequency are displayed on a virtual terminal console.

Page 9: explains how to connect the board to a PC and run the example program. You need:

SEGGER J-Link USB Serial Drivers.

SEGGER J-Link Real-Time Transfer (RTT) Viewer, virtual terminal emulation application. It is included in the J-Link Software and Documentation Pack which can be download from segger.com.

So I went to:

https://www.segger.com/downloads/jlink/

And downloaded the Windows 64-bit Installer V8.70 2025-09-17, the most recent at the time and I installed using the default options.

I plugged the board into my Windows 11 laptop using a micro USB cable plugged into the DEBUG1 port and the board's LED1, LED4, LED5 were lit. Then the computer ‘ran into a problem’ (the now black BSOD) and it restarted. Looking in the Event Viewer I found:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck

After the computer rebooted I got ChatGPT to analyse the crash dump but it was only able to give hints as to properly identify the fault I would need to use WinDbg, however, it did suggest temporarily disabling ProtonVPN. So I closed ProtonVPN and plugged the board in and the computer didn't crash. Looking at the Event Viewer again, at the time I plugged the board in without it crashing, I saw ‘A service was installed in the system.’ and ‘Service Name:  J-Link driver’. That driver is used by the board so perhaps there was a fault when it tried to load it only to crash the PC.

On the board LEDs LED1, LED4, and LED5 were on. Note that the power LED LED4 forms the ‘-’ between the ‘EK’ and ‘RA2E1’, which is a nice touch. LED5 was blinking very quickly, which supposedly shows the debug link is active.

In Device Manager the only thing I saw was ‘J-Link driver’ under ‘Universal Serial Bus Controllers’.

According to the Quick Start Guide the Quick Start Example Project preloaded on the board lights LED1 and LED2 (LED1 blinking, LED2 steady) but since the board is second hand likely it has other code running. Indeed, pressing S1 and S2 had no apparent affect on LED1 as would have been case for the preloaded example code.

I did open the J-Link RTT Viewer as mentioned in the Quick Start Guide since the board provides a virtual COM port, just to see if there was anything interesting generated by whatever code was running on the board. After entering the settings into J-Link RTT Viewer as shown in the Quick Start Guide I did the firmware update, which took about 6 seconds. LED5 was now rapidly flashing.

It was worth checking as the terminal view showed data that looked like it was related to elstat products, since I got the board amongst other items from an elstat clear-out. The text starts with a header declaring ‘Renesas FSP Example Project for r_sci_uart Module‘, ‘Example Project Version 1.0, and ‘Flex Software Pack Version  3.8.0’ so it looks like they adapted an example project. Another significant text is ‘The Pr2x V3 Project’, Pr2x-V2c was written on one of the elstat PCBs I got in the job lot so it looks like the EK-RA2E1 was used to prototype perhaps a later version of the elstat PCB.

The next interesting text: ‘DOOR_EVENT registered’ and ‘thermostat_on_door_event 0', then ‘**door_check** 0’ frequently repeated. The elstat control panels and PCBs I got in the clear-out have a door sensor so the text makes sense. 

At this point I knew the board worked, I will look into whether the program code can be extracted for research purposes.

EK-RA2L1

The EK-RA2L1 evaluation kit is ideal for evaluating the features of the RA2L1 MCU (Microcontroller), which is based on the Arm Cortex-M23, which you can learn more about at:

https://www.renesas.com/en/products/ra2l1

For the EK-RA2L1 kit product page please go to:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/ek-ra2l1

At the time of writing this article in 2025 the board is active and selling for $58.75 (£43.06). The page has links for the Quick Start Guide, manual, schematic, and software.

The EK-RA2L1 board comes pre-programmed with a Quick Start example project (source code provided in the EK-RA2L1 example project bundle). Simply power up the EK-RA2L1 board through the USB debug port (J10) using a micro USB device cable connected to a 5V power source, the white power LED will light up. The Quick Start example project will begin to execute blinking the blue user LED. Refer to the EK-RA2L1 – Quick Start Guide page 8 to explore additional functionality of the Quick Start example project.

Note that the manual is from 2020 so that helps date the board.

The board is similar in appearance to the EK-RA2E1 (also covered on my site) but taller and has a more powerful main processor with more flash, RAM, and I/O.

Now looking at the EK-RA2L1 kit I have in detail I will describe the parts of interest but note that your kit may differ slightly due to different revisions.

On the top of the box it has written:

EVALUATION KIT
EK-RA2L1
Version 1
Evaluation Kit for RA2L1 MCU Group
Renesas RA Family of 32-bit MCUs with Arm Core
Part Number:
RTK7EKA2L1S00001BE

A label shows it was bought from Farnell on 22/06/22.

On the box underside it lists the features including the Quick Start Example project, along with the URL: renesas.com/ra/ek-ra2l1. It also mentions the box contents (EK-RA2L1 board and micro USB cable).

Since the EK-RA2L1 board is similar to the EK-RA2E1 I won’t mention too much detail about the PCB, just some notable features.

PCB top side

U8 DZJA XMCK. ISL80102IRAJZ according to schematic, adjustable linear voltage regulator IC.
U7 R7FS124773. Arm Cortex-M0+ Core 128KB flash 16KB SRAM IC. Datasheet:

https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/948672/RENESAS/R7FS124773A01CNF.html

It has written:

EK RA2L1
Version 1
P/N RTK7EKA2L1S00001BE
renesas.com/ra/ek-ra2l1

In lower half it has the male I/O headers:

J1 2x20.
J2 2x10.
J3 2x10.
J4 2x10.

And the main chip: U1 R7FA2L1AB2DFP. Arm Cortex-M23 core 32KB SRAM 256KB flash IC. Datasheet:

https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/ra2l1-group-datasheet

Under U1 it has written:

RA2L1 MCU
P/N R7FA2L1AB2DFP
48MHz, 256KB Code Flash, 32KB SRAM, LQFP100

The PCB underside seems very similar to the EK-RA2E1.

Please note that only a few R7FA2L1AB2DFP GPIO pins are 5V tolerant when the chip is run off 3.3V as is the case for the development board - please see the R7FA2L1AB2DFP datasheet for details.

To test, I plugged the board into my Windows 11 laptop using the DEBUG1 micro USB port on the board. The power LED, LED4, was on, which nicely forms the ‘-’ between ‘EK’ and ‘RA2L1’, the debug LED, LED5, also lit, flickering regularly. Pressing S1 or S2 didn't do anything, however.

I opened J-Link RTT Viewer on my laptop and entered the appropriate settings (see the Quick Start Guide) and did the emulator firmware update. In the terminal window I saw ‘Renesas FSP Example Project for adc_gpt_periodic_sampling Module’, ‘Example Project Version 1.0’, and ‘Flex Software Pack Version  3.8.0’.

So it seems the previous owner had loaded a different example project on to the board but whether it was modified is unknown since there is no easy way to extract the code from the board and compare with the original example code.

In J-Link RTT Viewer it gave a summary of how the example works, mentioning toward the end ‘...The sample ADC data can be viewed through, waveform rendering of memory using memory viewer in e2studio.’ and ‘User can now open waveform rendering of memory in e2studio to observe the output of adc gpt periodic sampling’.

However, I did not try out the example that had been loaded on the board, instead I wanted to focus on building a project and flashing it to the board.

On the board’s product page there is a ‘Sample Code’ tab under ‘Design & Development’, there you can download ‘EK-RA2L1 Example Project Bundle’, which contains a range of projects including the one that is already on the board (adc_gpt_periodic_sampling). There’s also an ‘Application Note’ link which lists the various projects and how to run. If when extracting the examples zip file using the Windows File Explorer’s built-in extractor you get a ‘path too long’ error try a different program, such as 7-Zip.

I looked at the example project in the _quickstart folder, which is the originally preloaded project that the board has loaded on it when bought new. So I opened e2 studio and followed the steps in the Quick Start Guide to import the example project. Note that once imported you should close the Welcome tab and the Project Explorer will be visible on the left side where you can access the project files.

Rather than modify the project as mentioned in the Quick Start Guide I just wanted to try loading the code onto the board. I double-clicked the configuration.xml in Project Explorer and once loaded I clicked ‘Generate Project Content’. There were three warnings, two about ‘invalid path’, the third about encoding not being set. Nevertheless, I clicked on the Build icon, which was successful and resulted in one warning about conversion to 'unsigned int' from 'int'.

Next, I set up the Debug configuration as explained on page 21 of the Quick Start Guide but I pressed the Debug button on the Debug Configuration window to go into debugging. Execution was paused at start of Reset_Handler().I stepped over the code including into main_display_menu(), which outputted various strings using sprintf(), which appeared in the J-Link RTT Viewer which I still had opened.

In e2 studio I clicked the Resume button and the full menu appeared in the viewer. I then ran through the menu, which is explained in the Quick Start Guide. In the following screenshot I pressed ‘1’, which displayed kit information:

LED1 was blinking, LED2 on solid. Pressing S2 switched between fast, even faster, and default slower LED1 blinking speed, and S1 switched between three levels of intensity for LED1.

I didn’t do any more testing at this point as I was confident the board was working, I will return to it at a later date.

EK-RA6M1

The EK-RA6M1 Evaluation Kit (RTK7EKA6M1S00001BU) allows for the evaluation of the RA6M1 MCU Group (Microcontroller), based on the Arm Cortex-M4, which you can learn more about at:

https://www.renesas.com/en/products/ra6m1

For the EK-RA6M1 product page please go to:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/ek-ra6m1

At the time of writing this article in 2026 the board is active and selling for $47.41 (£35.31).The page has links for the Quick Start Guide, manual, design files, and software.

The Getting Started instructions on the product page informs us that:

1. The EK-RA6M1 board comes pre-programmed with a quick start example project (provided with the example projects bundle).
2. Power up the EK-RA6M1 board through the USB debug port (J11) using the micro USB device cable connected to a 5V power source. The green power LED will light up.

3. The quick start example project will begin to execute blinking the red user LED.

The features are also listed:

MCU Native Pin Access
R7FA6M1AD3CFP MCU
120MHz, Arm Cortex®-M4 core
512KB Code Flash, 256KB SRAM
100 pins, LQFP package, 14mm x 14mm x 1.70mm, 0.5mm pitch
Native pin access through 4x 40-pin male headers
MCU current measurement points
Ecosystem & System Control Access
USB Full Speed device
5V input through USB debug
SEGGER J-LinkTM on-board programmer and debugger
Debug modes
Debug On-board (SWD) – via J-Link
Debug Out (SWD) – via J-Link
Debug in (SWD and JTAG)
Two Digilent PmodTM (SPI and UART)
User LED
Mechanical user button
Capacitive user button
MCU boot configuration jumper

In 2026 I got two EK-RA6M1 kits in an eBay job lot, both boxes were sealed, along with multiple Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Boards (please see the relevant section on this page).

Now looking at one of the EK-RA6M1 kits I bought in more detail, the top of the box has the model number EK-RA6M1 written on it along with 'Version 1' (both boxes have the same version printed) and the summary 'Evaluation Kit for RA6M1 MCU Group Renesas RA Family of 32-bit MCUs with Arm Core'. It also has the part number printed: RTK7EKA6M1S00001BU.

On one side of the box it has a date of 2019/08/05 (on the other one the date is 2020/04/10).

The bottom of the box it lists the key features, which is only a slightly shorter version of the features I’ve already listed from the product page, along with the getting started instructions, box contents (EK-RA6M1 board and micro USB device cable), as well as a copyright date of 2019 so we can assume that the product was first released in that year.

I unsealed the boxes, inside was a standard micro USB cable, and the board in an anti-static bag, nicely packaged between three foam pads.

I’ll now go into more detail about the PCB, highlighting some key components, but note there may be board revisions that have minor differences.

PCB top

Various test points
J11 DEBUG USB female micro USB connector.
J9 DEVICE USB female micro USB connector.
LED2 PWR DEBUG dual colour LED (lit green when power available, red for J-LINK status).
J1 2x20 male header carrying various interface signals, pinout printed on PCB.
J10 JTAG 2x5 male header connector.
U2 S124 J-LINK MCU R7FS124773A01CFM. Ultra-low power 32-MHz Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, 128-KB code flash memory, 16-KB SRAM, Capacitive
Touch Sensing Unit, 14-bit A/D Converter, 12-bit D/A Converter, security and safety features. Datasheet:
https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/s124-microcontroller-group-datasheet?language=en

J12 unpopulated 2x3 connector J-LINK S124 RE-PROG.
E6 unpopulated 2x2 connector for current measurement.
J2 2x20 male header carrying various interface signals, pinout printed on PCB.
J8 2x2 BOOT CONFIG male header with jumper fitted to select internal flash.
U1 R7FA6M1AD3CFP main MCU. 120-MHz Arm Cortex-M4 core, 512-KB code flash memory, 256-KB SRAM, Capacitive Touch Sensing Unit, USB 2.0 Full-Speed, SDHI, Quad SPI, security and safety features, and advanced analog. Datasheet:
https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/renesas-ra6m1-group-datasheet?srsltid=AU7gw4XvySn2KY69uaEHKpxKRpx4FrMNkM_-szqJePTvjsTtqeW1_NWw

J3 2x20 male header carrying various interface signals, pinout printed on PCB.
S2 RESET push button.
S1 USER BTN push button.
TS1 TOUCH BTN capacitive button.
POT1 unpopulated user potentiometer.
J4 2x20 male header carrying various interface signals, pinout printed on PCB.
J5 PMOD A 2x6 female header.
LED1 red user LED.
J6 PMOD B 1x6 female header.

Written on the PCB toward the lower portion is:

EK-RA6M1
P/N RTK7EKA6M1S00001BU
renesas.com/ra/ek-ra6m1

PCB bottom

A small foot in each corner.
Pinouts for J1 - J4.
Various copper jumpers.

In the middle it has printed:

RENESAS
RA
EK-RA6M1
v1

In one corner it has printed:

EK-RA6M1_REV_1 (this is the same on both boards so both of them are indeed version 1).

Please note that only a few R7FA6M1AD3CFP GPIO pins are 5V tolerant when the chip is run off 3.3V as is the case for the development board - please see the R7FA6M1AD3CFP datasheet for details.

Looking at the Quick Start Guide, which note is dated Jun.12.20, page 6 confirms the kit contents (EK-RA6M1 board and Micro USB device cable), and page 7 gives an overview of the Quick Start Example Project:

The Quick Start example project allows the user to change the frequency of the on-board LED, LED1, using the User Button (USER BTN). The supported frequencies are 1 Hz, 5 Hz, and 10 Hz. When the board running the Quick Start example project is connected to the PC via Device USB port, the kit information, MCU die temperature, user LED blinking frequency, and so forth, can be displayed on a terminal console.

On page 8 it talks about running the Quick Start Example Project and the requirements:

Hardware Requirements 

*EK-RA6M1 board
*Two Micro USB device cables 
Note: EK-RA6M1 includes only one micro USB device cable. The user will need an additional micro USB device cable for this project.
*A PC with at least 1 USB port

Software Requirements

Windows 10 operating system
USB Serial Drivers (included in Windows 10)
Tera Term (or similar) terminal console application

It goes on to explain:

Connecting and Powering Up the Board

1. Connect the micro USB end of the first micro USB device cable to connector J11 (DEBUG USB located in the DEBUG area) on the board. 
2. Connect the other end of this cable to the USB port of the host PC or a 5 V power source. LED2 (PWR) on the board lights up solid green, indicating that the board is powered on.

Note: EK-RA6M1 uses SEGGER J-Link as the on-board debugging interface. Make sure that the J-Link drivers are installed on the PC by checking for them in the Windows Device Manager. If J-Link drivers are installed on the PC and detected by the board, the LED2 (DEBUG) blinks orange with a very small duty cycle that is barely noticeable. Otherwise, LED2 (DEBUG) blinks orange prominently.

3. Connect the micro USB end of the second micro USB device cable to connector J9 (DEVICE USB) on the board. Connect the other end of the cable to the USB port of the host PC.

Running the Quick Start Example Project

To run the Quick Start example project, use the following instructions: 

1. On power up or RESET, the user LED (LED1) starts blinking red at 1 Hz.
2. Press the user button (S1, USER BTN) on the EK-RA6M1 board to change the blinking frequency of LED1. With every button press, the frequency will switch from 1 Hz to 5 Hz to 10 Hz and cycle back.
3. On the host PC, open Windows Device Manager. Expand Ports (COM & LPT), locate USB Serial Device (COMxx) and note down the COM port number for reference in the next step.
Note:  USB Serial Device drivers are required to communicate between the EK-RA6M1 board and the terminal application on the host PC.
4. Open Tera Term, select Serial and COMxx: USB Serial Device (COMxx) and click OK.
5. Press Enter key. The welcome message will be displayed.
6. Press 1 to display the kit name, part number, MCU die temperature, and LED1’s current blinking frequency.
7. Press 2 to display Next Steps.

Note:  At any point, the user can press the Enter key to return to the welcome message.

Page 11 runs through customizing the Quick Start Example Project and page 18 the ‘Next Steps’.

Next, the User’s Manual, which is dated Apr.09.20, goes into much more detail about the kit than the Quick Start Guide. From page 6 it gives a kit overview, and page 10 on has Hardware Details.

Another download, the Design Package, includes 3D drawings, bill of materials (BOM), and schematic.

The mechanical drawings indicate that the board measures 80mm x 125mm (which I’ve confirmed to be correct).

A refreshing thing about the board schematic is that it includes the debugger circuitry, which is not the case for some other Renesas boards.

The Errata download is worth reading: on page 1 it details:

Version 1

LED2 (Power and debug status) installed incorrectly

Versions affected: version 1 (v1), serial numbers 001 through 550

LED2 may be installed with reverse polarity. When installed incorrectly, LED2 will not turn on.  

The kit is otherwise fully functional, but the kit may appear to not be on.

Corrective Action 

LED2 may be removed and reinstalled in the correct orientation. When reinstalling LED2, ensure that the green cathode mark on the top of LED2 points to the right, toward the “PWR” and “DEBUG” labels next to LED2. Refer to Figure 1 and Figure 2.

I don't know how this error was missed, surely it would have been detected during testing?

Then, on page 2, it shows how to identify the serial number from the box and PCB.

Looking at the two kits I have, on one of the boxes the serial number is 0000020276 but on the PCB it's 000276. On the other box the serial number is 0000000539 and on the PCB 000539. Since the two serial numbers of the first one are different by one digit it's confusing whether it's affected by the fault.

To test I followed page 8 of the Quick Start Guide to run the Quick Start Example. So I plugged a micro USB cable from the board's J11 to my Windows 11 laptop. The board’s LED2 lit green but was also blinking red, and LED1 was flashing every second (the default speed). In Device Manager, 'J-Link driver' appeared under Universal Serial Bus controllers. Note: I already had the J-Link driver installed.

Next, I plugged a micro USB cable from  the board's J9 to my laptop and in Device Manager, 'USB Serial Device' appeared under Ports (COM & LPT).

Pressing the board’s USER BTN/S1 button cycled through fast, then rapid, then slow (the default speed) flashing and pressing the RESET/S2 button returned LED1 to the default speed.

I then opened PuTTY (you can use similar software, the Quick Start Guide shows Tera Term) and opened a serial connection to the board set to 9600 (the speed isn’t specified in the Quick Start Guide but I used PuTTY's default).

I pressed the enter key and the welcome message appeared:

I pressed 1in PuTTY to display the kit name, part number, MCU die temperature, and LED1’s current blinking frequency. Pressing 2 to display the Next Steps was just a list of URLs. and pressing enter redisplayed the welcome message.

After I had tested the second kit, which behaved the same as the first, I was pleased to see neither of them have the fault with LED2 being installed incorrectly.

Next, I went on to Quick Start Guide page 11 ‘Customizing the Quick Start Example Project’. The guide instructs to download the platform installer available on 

the FSP webpage at renesas.com/ra/fsp. Since I had previously done that for a different Renesas board I skipped the step. I downloaded the EK-RA6M1 Example Project Bundle (r20an0562eu-ek-ra6m1-exampleprojects.zip) from the Renesas site and extracted the contents.

I opened e2 studio (the 07-2025 version, which I happened to have) and opened a new workspace. I closed the Welcome page and then went to File->Import… In the Import Projects dialog box, I selected General->Existing Projects into Workspace and clicked the Next button.

I clicked the Browse... button to the right of the 'Select root directory radio' button and browsed to the location of the Quick Start example project folder (r20an0562eu-ek-ra6m1-exampleprojects\ek_ra6m1\_quickstart). I clicked the Select Folder button and quickstart_ek_ra6m1_ep appeared in the Projects section of the Import Projects dialog box.

Finally, I clicked the Finish button.

There was one warning and a pop-up to say there was missing software. I clicked on the pop-up and it brought up a window highlighting 'RA FSP 6.6.0' was missing. So I clicked the Apply and Close button to install the missing software. After it had finished, a pop-up informed me that the installation was complete and I needed to re-build the project for it to take effect. So I selected the project in the Project Explorer and did Project->Build Project and it built without errors or warnings even though there were 5 warnings (multiple Invalid project path and no explicit encoding set warnings) listed in the Problems section of e2 studio.

Next, on to modifying the Quick Start Example, which is detailed on page 15 of the Quick Start Guide. They give a few examples of what can be modified but no actual modification details. However, we can see the majority of the example coding is in src->hal_entry.c (expand quickstart_ek_ra6m1_ep in Project Explorer):

Additionally, we can see that by opening the configuration.xml file from Project Explorer the configuration for the MCU. Below shows the Stacks configuration tab selected and the Properties tab below it:

However, when I opened up configuration.xml it caused ADC_START_SOURCE_DISABLED error to appear.

It would appear from the configuration that certain parts of the hardware are being handled directly without code, such as the flashing of the user LED. Looking at g_gpt_red Timer, General Properties, GTIOCB is connected to P112, which is what the user LED is connected to.

It’s unfortunate there isn't (or at least I couldn't find) a document that describes in detail how the example projects work. The readme.txt file in quickstart_ek_ra6m1_ep folder just describes how to run the example.

I didn't modify the project since I intended to run different code on the board for trying an add-on module I needed to test (see my write-up of the Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board). Indeed there are lots of examples in the EK-RA6M1 Example Project Bundle. However I did try out debugging the board using the imported Quick Start Example Project.

With the board still connected to my laptop, in e2 studio I did Run->Debug As->Renesas GDB Hardware Debugging. Note: make sure you first have the project selected in Project Explorer.

After starting the debugging it updated the J-Link firmware before programming the board. A pop-up then appeared asking whether I wanted to switch to the Debug perspective, I clicked the Switch button and the code was halted on SystemInit() in startup.c as below:

I was able to step over the code, view the registers, view memory, and so on.

Run->Resume caused program execution to continue as normal, with the board’s user LED flashing, and flash rate changed by pressing the user button, and access to the COM port working.

Run->Terminate caused the debug session to end, the user LED stopped flashing. Pressing the board’s reset button caused the program to run again as signified by the user LED blinking, etc.

At this point it was clear the board was working.

FPB-RA2E1

The FPB-RA2E1 Fast Prototyping Board (FPB) is intended for evaluating the RA2E1 MCU (Microcontroller), based on the Arm Cortex-M23, which you can learn more about at:

https://www.renesas.com/en/products/ra2e1

For the FPB-RA2E1 kit product page please go to:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/fpb-ra2e1

At the time of writing this article in 2025 the board is active and selling for $21.02(£15.51). The page has links for the Quick Start Guide, manual, design files, and software.

Going into a bit more detail about the board, it features a R7FA2E1A93CFM microcontroller, along with a built-in E2 emulator Lite equivalent for programming and debugging programs on the board. Additionally, the board has both Arduino Uno and Pmod interfaces, along with through-hole access to all pins of the microcontroller.

The original package contents are:

• FPB-RA2E1 Fast Prototyping Board (RTK7FPA2E1S00001BE)

• Quick Start Guide

I got two FPB-RA2E1 FPBs from a job lot, one that is not boxed (PCB only), which I’ll talk about first, and the second which is boxed, which I’ll cover later.

Looking closer at the PCB, I will highlight some of the features, although there might be minor differences compared to other revisions.

PCB top

Various test points.
Various solder bridge and trace cut jumpers.

PMOD1, PMOD2 2xPMOD (2x6 female) headers.
J1, J2, J5, J6 Arduino Uno R3 female headers (8-way, 6-way, 10-way, and 8-way).
J3, J4 two MCU 2x16 unpopulated headers.
U1 R7FA2E1A93CFM Arm Cortex-M23 128KB code flash memory, 16KB SRAM with Capacitive Sensing Unit. Datasheet:
https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/ra2e1-group-datasheet

IC2 F52318A seems to be the debugger chip but I cannot find the datasheet.
CN1 3-way header with jumper on pins 2 and 3 (debugger disabled). Put on 1 and 2 to enable the debugger.

Unpopulated headers:

CN2 (4-way) not mentioned in the manual or schematic but appears to be debugger related.
CN3 (3-way) enable SCI Boot Mode.
CN4 (2x5) external Cortex debug connector (JTAG/SWD/ETM).
CN5 (2-way) alternative power connection.
J7 (2-way) boot mode (P201).

Y1 unpopulated. 20MHz according to schematic.
Y2 S807A 32.768KHz according to schematic.

U2 DZAAXKWH. User’s Manual says its for power regulation, the schematic says it's a ISL80102IRAJZ, which is a high performance 2A linear regulator.
CN6 USB Micro female connector (power/programming/debugging).

LEDs:

LED1 (green) user LED P015.
LED2 (green) user LED P914.
LED3 (green) visual status of the debug interface.
POWER (green) indicates the board's receiving power.

Push buttons:

S1 User Switch P205 (IRQ1).
S2 MCU Reset Switch RESET#.

Written on the PCB is:

FPB-RA2E1
RTK7FPA2E1S00001BE
renesas.com/ra/fpb-ra2e1

PCB bottom

Written on the PCB is D017742_V02.

There is a label with the text:

ASSY9248
WMD 0957110199

Please note that only some R7FA2E1A93CFM GPIO pins are 5V tolerant when the chip is run off 3.3V as is the case for the development board - please see the R7FA2E1A93CFM datasheet for details.

To test the board I plugged it into my Windows 11 laptop using a micro USB cable connected to the board's CN6 connector. The POWER LED came on, and LED1 and 2 were flashing together, and each time S1 was pressed it toggled between LED1 and 2 flashing slow/fast. This would appear to be a preloaded demo program yet I couldn't find mention of it neither in the Quick Start Guide nor the User's Manual.

At this point Windows didn't detect the board but this may be because the debugger was not enabled.

I came across this video:

The video is from last year even though the FPB-RA2E1 is older, however, the video is intended for the FPB RA family even though they show the FPB-RA2E1.

I went to the github link they show:

https://github.com/renesas/fsp/releases

Which is now v6.1.0 rather than v3.1.0 shown in the video.

I downloaded the setup_fsp_v6_1_0_e2s_v2025-07.exe FSP (Flexible Software Package) e2 studio Windows installer and ran the executable. After installing, I started e2 studio, it asked for the workspace directory, I left it at the default and clicked the Launch button. It tried to get me to log in to my Renesas account but I cancelled (it seemed unnecessary). I was then greeted with the welcome screen, as below.

I continued following the video, which walks through creating a blinky project. So I created a new project from the Welcome tab rather than the Project Explorer tab shown in video. The next screenshot shows the project after having run through the project creation settings:

As indicated in the video, after building the project you need to plug the board into your PC and move the board jumper on CN1 to position 1-2, LED3 will then flash, indicating the debugger is active. I saw that in Device Manager the board showed up as ‘Renesas E2 Lite’ under ‘Renesas USB Development Tools’.

However, when in the video they show accessing the debug config it was in a different place on my version of e2 studio. This is what I did:

I clicked on the Debug drop-down, selected ‘Debug Configurations…’, expanded ‘Renesas GDB Hardware Debugging’ in the pop-up window and clicked the project name. For reference here is a screenshot:

Also, there was an Apply button rather than an OK button and I could click on the Debug button to go straight into debugging.

Note that when debugging, the code will be written to the board in the processor’s flash memory. 

When debugging starts, The Reset_Handler() code will be shown, which essentially is the start of the program, but you can click the Resume button and the code will run, causing LED1 and LED2 to flash together. I found that pressing S1 did not affect the flash rate like when I first powered the board so it must be a different program and indeed the code doesn’t use any buttons.

You can click the Terminate button and the LED will stop flashing and the debugging session will end.

Alternatively, while debugging you can of course step through the code, etc. 

In the following image I have stepped into the code until I reached the main code that turns both LEDs on/off:

To test the board further I looked at the documentation for the board:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/fpb-ra2e1#documents

I found the only example that didn't require an add-on:

Low Power Application (Use of ADC, DTC and ELC at Snooze mode) for FPB-RA2E1 and FPB-RA2E2

It mentions:

We recommend that you build and run the Blinky project according to the section “Tutorial: Your First RA MCU Project – Blinky” in the FSP User’s Manual (R11UM0155) prior to trying out this application.

I found a copy at:

https://docs.rs-online.com/9f86/A700000006951952.pdf

Which is well worth reading through and is applicable to multiple Renesas boards.

However, it turns out the Low Power Application example does indeed need an add-on so I didn’t go with it but at least I knew the board was working.

As previously mentioned, I also have a boxed FPB-RA2E1, which was sealed when I received it, but other than the box the only additional item is a printed Quick Start Guide. The PCB seems the same but has a different WMD # on label  on the PCB underside. Both PCBs have the silkscreen error found on v1 in which the J3 signal P300/SWCLK is labelled as P302/SWCLK.

The box top simply says:

RA2E1
Fast
Prototyping
Board

I plugged the board from the previously sealed box into my PC, and LED1 and LED2 flashed together, pressing S1 switched between the fast/slow rate so that indeed is the default program that was preloaded. I didn’t test the board further since it was sealed other than to check the debugger was enabled when I moved the jumper on CN1.

RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board

It would seem that the RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board (a.k.a. Capacitive Touch CPU board) was part of a bundle kit, which included the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board. I got both in an eBay job lot without the original packaging.

Initially I couldn't find a Renesas product page for the kit but I did find it on Farnell:

https://uk.farnell.com/renesas/rtk0eg0022s01001bj/eval-kit-32bit-arm-cortex-m23/dp/3584532

Where the kit is referred to as 'RTK0EG0022S01001BJ Evaluation Kit, RA2L1, 32 bit, ARM Cortex-M23'.

The kit (RTK0EG0022S01001BJ) consists of two parts, which are the RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board (RTK0EG0018C01001BJ) and Capacitive touch application board (RTK0EG0019B01002BJ). I cover the latter in its own section.

On Farnell, at the time of writing this article, the kit is selling for £122.66 ($165.28). This is how the kit is described:

RA2L1 MCU group capacitive touch evaluation system is a kit created for evaluating the RA2L1 MCU group capacitive touch sensing unit (CTSU). It is composed of two boards: the RA2L1 cap touch CPU board is mounted with an RA2L1 MCU which includes an on-chip CTSU and capacitive touch application board is equipped with self-capacitance touch buttons, wheel/slider electrodes, and LEDs touch electrodes. It has operation voltage of 3.3V to 5.0V (power source connector (5.5 x 2.1mm centre plus DC jack): 3.3V to 5.0V, USB bus power: 5V) Other features includes MCU current measurement jumper, two user push button switches, two user LEDs. The RA2L1 cap touch CPU board has dimension of 89mm (W) x 89mm (L) and application board has dimension of 110 mm (W) x110 mm (L).

Contents

RA2L1 cap touch CPU board (RTK0EG0018C01001BJ), Capacitive touch application board (RTK0EG0019B01002BJ).

The Farnell site has a link to the datasheet, which is the ‘Renesas Solution Starter Kit Capacitive Touch Evaluation System User’s Manual’, and toward the bottom of the page it has the Quick Start Guide link.

I later found what looks like the official Renesas product page for the kit:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/rssk-ra2l1

In which it is called 'Capacitive Touch Evaluation System for RA2L1'.

Currently the kit is shown as active and selling for $162.50 (£120.59).

Note that Renesas use the model number RSSK-RA2L1, although they do use the RTK0EG0022S01001BJ number in the documentation section. Speaking of which, the page has links for the User’s Manual, Quick Start Guide, example project application note and software, design files, and so on.

I will now go over some details of the Cap Touch CPU board that I have but there may be minor differences compared to different revisions.

PCB top

Written on the PCB:

RA2L1 CAP Touch CPU Board
RTK0EG0018C01001BJ v1.0

Various test points and headers with jumpers.

CN1 Application Board Interface (GPIO).
CN2 Application Board Interface (CTSU).
CN3 Barrel jack female connector for powering the board, labelled 5.5VMAX, centre pos.
CN5 Micro USB female connector for PC interface/powering the board.
J1 debugger 2x5 connector.
JP2 power selection.
JP3 current measurement.
SW1 reset push button.
SW2 and SW3 user push buttons.
SW5 slide switch enables/disables CTSU (capacitive touch sensing unit) correction function.
SW6 DIP switch selects MCU boot mode.
LED1 red power indicator.
LED2 green user LED.
LED3 yellow user LED.
FTDI FT234XD IC UART to USB bridge.
R7FA2L1AB2DFP 48 MHz Arm Cortex-M23 core 256KB code flash 32KB SRAM. Datasheet:
https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/ra2l1-group-datasheet

Please note when run off 5V the R7FA2L1AB2DFP GPIO pins are of course 5V tolerant but this will not be the case should the Cap Touch CPU be run off a lower voltage - please see the R7FA2L1AB2DFP datasheet for details.

Note: there is no SW4.

Unfortunately the pins on J1 were bent by the previous owner and part of the surrounding plastic was broken off, I can possibly bend the pins back.

PCB bottom

Four feet, one in each corner.
Label with code: 0IS0080.

Looking at the Quick start guide, we can see on page that the kit originally came with:

RA2L1 Cap Touch CPU board (RTK0EG0018C01001BJ)
Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application Board Self-Capacitance Buttons / Wheels / Slider Board (RTK0EG0019B01002BJ)

On page 7 it says of the Quick Start Example Project:

The Quick Start example project detects touch positions from the touch electrodes on the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application Board which is connected to the Touch CPU board, and lights up the LEDs for the corresponding electrode positions.

Some important notes can be found on page 8:

Pg 8: Note 1: The USB Type-A to USB Micro-B cable is not included in the RTK0EG0022S01001BJ kit, but is required for power supply from the USB port as well as communications between the CPU board and the PC.

Note 2: The J-Link® Series In-circuit Emulator and J-Link® 9-pin Cortex-M Adapter are not included in the RTK0EG0022S01001BJ kit, but is required when customizing the Quick Start example project.

Note 3: E2 Emulator/E2 Emulator Lite and RTE0T00020KCAC1000J are not included in the

RTK0EG0022S01001BJ kit. E2 Emulator/E2 Emulator Lite is required when customizing the Quick Start example project.

So it seems the USB is just for UART and to program you need to connect an E2 Emulator/E2 Emulator Lite to J1 on the CPU board to program/debug.

I plugged the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board (which I talk about in more detail in its own section) so that connectors CN1 and CN2 were inserted into the corresponding connectors of the Cap Touch CPU board. Then I plugged a micro USB cable into connector CN5 of the Cap Touch CPU board (the Quick Start Guide wrongly says CN2) and the other end into my Windows 11 laptop. The Cap Touch CPU board LED1 came on, and in the Device Manager it showed as a USB Serial Port.

Referring back to the Quick Start Guide, page 9 states:

On power up or RESET, After power-up or reset, the CPU board and application board LEDs light up in a pattern. After all the LEDs are turned off, the initial tuning of the touch sensor is executed, and touch detection becomes possible.

Touching an electrode will illuminate the associated LED to indicate the touch position.

I found that some LEDs briefly lit on the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board and through touch I was able to get most of the LEDs to light (there is a very brief delay, take note). On the wheel section I could only get LED1 to LED4 and LED8 to light, and oddly LED4 lit when I touched in the LED4 or LED5 position. It may be that the previous owner loaded their own code to the Cap Touch CPU board.

Pressing the reset button (SW1) on the Cap Touch CPU board caused all LEDs but LED1, LED2, LED4, LED5, LED6, LED7, LED10, LED11, LED12 to light. You have to be careful not to hold the board with one hand while touching with the other as it can stop the detection although I was able to get 2 LEDs to light at once with 2 fingers. Also, I found it more responsive to my thumb than finger.

Although it was mostly behaving like the Quick Start example project the code may have been modified by the previous owner or the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board is partly faulty. Since I don’t have a suitable programmer and they are expensive, I can’t reflash the test code to the Cap Touch CPU board, but if I get the required programmer in the future I’ll update this section.

I did test the LEDs on the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board manually by disconnecting the board from the Cap Touch CPU board and connecting wires directly to the Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board using a 5VDC supply. Refer to the schematic for the wiring. As an example, to light LED1:

LED_ROW0 (CN1 pin 13) to 0V
LED_COL0 (CN1 pin 4) to +5V
VCC_LED (CN1 pin 15) to +5V
VSS_LED (CN1 pin 16) to 0V

I manually tested the LEDs that I couldn’t get to light when using the Cap Touch CPU board and I was able to light each one. Considering I got the Cap Touch CPU board and Capacitive Touch Evaluation Application board, along with lots of elstat touch panels which only have three touch buttons, likely there’s custom code on the Cap Touch CPU board which purposely doesn’t use a few of the touch buttons.

TB-S3A6

The S3A6 Target Board Kit (TB-S3A6) is ideal for evaluating the Synergy S3A6 MCU, based on the Arm Cortex-M4, which you can learn more about at:

https://www.renesas.com/en/products/s3a6

For the TB-S3A6 kit product page please go to:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/tb-s3a6

At the time of writing this article in 2026 the board is active and selling for $34.12(£25.73). The page has links for the Quick Start Guide, manual, design files, and software. If you click on the Order Now button you will see that the order code is RTK7TBS3A6S00001BU.

I was fortunate in 2026 to get five TB-S3A6 kits from an eBay job lot for £33.50 ($44.94) shipped, sold as brand new.

However, each of the five boxes I received were unsealed and each anti static bag containing the board had been cut open so they weren’t brand new as stated by the seller. In addition to the board each box contained a standard micro USB cable.

Looking at one of the boxes in more detail, on the top and most of the sides it has written:

S3 TB-S3A6 Target Board for Synergy MCU
Renesas synergy

On one side of the box it has written 'Ordering P/N: YSTBS3A6E10'. This matches the MPN mentioned on the eBay listing.

On the back of the box it lists kit features, information about the Renesas synergy software package, and getting started information. Additionally, there was a QR code - which my phone wouldn't scan - but likely takes you to the URL printed to the right of the QR code: renesassynergy.com/kits/TB-S3A6. There is (c) date of 2017 and a document number of R50ZZ0017EU0000-SYNERGY.

Note that going to renesassynergy.com/kits/TB-S3A6 takes you to:

https://www.renesas.com/en/products/microcontrollers-microprocessors/renesas-synergy-platform-mcus

However, through Wayback Machine I found a version of the page from 2019 with a different URL:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190302214334/https://www.renesas.com/us/en/products/synergy/hardware/kits/tb-s3a6.html

This is different to the previously linked to product page and it even specifies the order code YSTBS3A6E10 found on the box unlike the current product page which lists RTK7TBS3A6S00001BU. Both YSTBS3A6E10 and RTK7TBS3A6S00001BU appear to be for the exact same product but RTK7TBS3A6S00001BU is the newer code. In fact if you look at the 'Synergy MCU Kits Part Number Look-up Table' application note available from the current product page it lists RTK7TBS3A6S00001BU as the new part number for YSTBS3A6E10, along with kit name TB-S3A6.

Back to the current product page (https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/tb-s3a6) it has a description of the kit:

The S3A6 Target Board (TB-S3A6) features the 48MHz Arm® Cortex®-M4 core, microcontrollers (MCUs) that provide a host of analog and security functions to realize a variety of embedded systems and IoT designs. Users can experience the full features of the Synergy™ S3A6 MCUs with access to all pins, standardized expansion ports, and preinstalled demo software.

As well as a list of the features:

Access all pins and on‑board peripherals of the Synergy S3A6 MCU Group
Accelerate code development with the tightly integrated and qualified Synergy Software Package (SSP)
View, step through, and debug code using the Renesas e² studio IDE or IAR Embedded Workbench® for Renesas Synergy
Flexible connectivity options with USB and a Pmod™ connector, enabling rapid prototyping with plug‑in modules
Human machine interface (HMI) functionality with a capacitive touch sensing unit (CTSU), a segment LCD controller, and user push buttons
Monitor system status and test functionality using programmable LEDs, capacitive buttons, or mechanical buttons
Measure real‑time power consumption during program execution
Operate using high‑precision on‑board crystals or a lower‑precision internal clock
Security and encryption functions enable secure data communication and storage, with support for industry‑standard algorithms such as AES‑128, AES‑256, and GHASH
Safety features include hardware diagnostics, memory protection, and watchdog timers
Debugging and programming supported by on‑board J‑Link® OB

As previously mentioned there are various downloads, including the PCB Design Files (which you have to log in to download (it’s free to sign up). In the zip you get a number of files such as the BOM, mechanical drawing, and schematic. Note that the mechanical drawing specifies the board as being 80 x 125 mm (which I’ve confirmed) and the schematic was updated in 2020 to add a note about C33 being optional.

Now looking at the board in more detail I will detail the most interesting components but note that there may be revisions with minor differences:

PCB top

TP4 GND, TP3 5V test connectors.
J11 DEBUG USB micro USB female connector.
J9 DEVICE USB micro USB female connector.
LED2 PWR DEBUG.
J1 2x20 male header carrying various signals with pinout.
J10 JTAG 2x5 connector.
U2 S124 J-LINK MCU R7FS124773A01CFM. Ultra-low power 32-MHz Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, 128-KB code flash memory, 16-KB SRAM. Datasheet: https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/s124-microcontroller-group-datasheet?r=1054581.
J12 2x3 unpopulated connector. J-Link S124 re-prog.
E6 2x2 unpopulated connector (for current measurement).
J2 2x20 male header carrying various signals with pinout.
J8 BOOT CONFIG 2x2 male header with jumper selecting 'internal flash' option. The jumper can be moved to select 'SCI/USB boot'.
U1 R7FS3A6783A01CFP. High efficiency 48-MHz Arm Cortex-M4 core, 256KB code flash memory, 32KB SRAM. Datasheet: https://www.renesas.com/en/document/dst/s3a6-microcontroller-group-datasheet?r=1054606
J3 2x20 male header carrying various signals with pinout.
S2 RESET push button.
J4 2x20 male header carrying various signals with pinout.
S1 USER BTN push button.
TS1 TOUCH BTN.
POT1 USER PORT (unpopulated) for user potentiometer to be added.
J5 PMOD A 2x6 female header.
LED1 user LED.
TP1 3V3, TP2 GND test connectors.
J6 PMOD B 1x6 female header.
Mounting hole in each corner.

Written on the board is:

R7FS3A6783A01CFP
RENESAS synergy
J-Link OB
www.segger.com

PCB bottom

Rubber foot in each corner
J1-J4 pinouts
Various PCB configuration copper jumpers (either you need to cut a track of solder pads together).

Written on board is:

http://renesassynergy.com/kits/tb-s3a6
RENESAS synergy
TB-S3A6
Design by Serious PCB-000080-02
TB-S3A6_REV_1.0

There’s also a QR code or something similar likely to identify the board.

Please note that only a few R7FS3A6783A01CFP GPIO pins are 5V tolerant when the chip is run off 3.3V as is the case for the development board - please see the R7FS3A6783A01CFP datasheet for details.

To test the boards I followed the Quick Start Guide. On page 4, under '4. Connecting the board components' it instructs:

1. Connect the Micro USB end of the supplied USB cable to the TB-S3A6 board J11 connector (DEBUG_USB).
2. Connect the other end of the USB cable to the USB port on your workstation. LED2 turns green, indicating a good connection.

It then goes on to say in section '5. Running the Out-of-Box application':

Follow the steps mentioned in section 4.0 to power up the board. Once the S3A6 board is powered up, the preloaded Out-of-Box Demonstration application will start to execute. You will notice the LED1 starts to flash at an interval of 0.5 seconds using RTOS timers.

So I plugged the board into my laptop as instructed. LED2 (PWR DEBUG) lit green and rapidly flashed red at the same time before remaining green. After about 1s the LED was very faintly blinking red while also green - the LED appears to be made of multiple LED segments (looking at the schematic green=power available, red=J-Link). LED1 (which is red only) was flashing as expected of the 'Out-of-Box (OoB) Demonstration' Blinky program.

In Device Manager I noticed 'J-Link driver' under 'Universal Serial Bus controllers', which is to be expected as the board supports J-Link and I already had the driver installed for a different board I'd used.

Lastly, just to mention that the Quick Start Guide then lists under '6. Next Steps' various links on page 5, which give more information about developing for the board.

I tested all the boards were flashing LED1 when powered and that the J-Link driver appeared in Device Manager. One of the boards, although LED1 was flashing, Device Manager showed the J-Link driver as having an issue:

This device cannot start. (Code 10)
{Operation Failed}
The requested operation was unsuccessful.

However, I replugged the board and there was no longer an issue so perhaps the cable wasn’t seated right in the board?

To learn more about how the board works and how to use it, it's worth reading the User’s Manual. On page 9, in section '3. Getting Started with Embedded Application Development on TB-S3A6' it details how to develop apps for the board, which involves downloading and installing Synergy Software Package and Development Tools.

For the development tool I went with e2 studio, which is from Renesas and is free, unlike IAR Embedded Workbench. e2 studio can be downloaded from:

https://www.renesas.com/en/software-tool/e2-studio#downloads

However I already had installed the July 2025 version so I decided to use that.

I thought a straightforward first step using e2 studio was to open up the Blinky pre-programmed example and test debugging. The application note is downloadable from the board product page titled 'Out-of-Box (OoB) Demonstration (Blinky) Application for S1/S3/S5 Target Board Kits' (REN_r12an0070eu0105-synergy-oob-demo-for-s1-s3-s5-target-board-kits_APN_20190208_1.pdf).

Page 1 lists the hardware and software requirements to build apps under 'Required Resources'. In particular to use e2 studio v5.4.0.023 or later is required.

Page 4 gives the application project overview. In section '3. Importing, Building, and Downloading the Application Project'. It specifies:

Refer to the SSP Import Guide (r11an0023eu0121-synergy-ssp-import-guide.pdf) for instructions on importing the bundled application project into e2 studio ISDE or IAR EW, to build and run the project. The SSP Import Guide is included in the zipped folder along with this application note. 

Note: You need to select the OoB_Demo_TBxxx Debug option from the GDB Hardware Debugging configuration window based on the kit for debugging. 

Page 5, section 'Recreating, Generating, and Building the Application Project' details how to create the app from scratch.

The project import guide is REN_r11an0023eu0121-synergy-ssp-import-guide_APN_20181022_1.pdf, listed on the Renesas site as ‘Renesas Synergy™ Project Import Guide - Application Note’ (you may need to click the View More button). Since I was using e2 studio I referred to page 11, which details importing and building projects.

I opened e2 studio, selected a workspace, and went to File->Import… In the Import dialog box, I expanded the General section and selected 'Existing Projects into Workspace' and clicked the Next button. I then picked the 'Select archive file' radio button, then clicked the Browse button and navigated to and selected r12an0070eu0105-synergy-oob-demo-for-s1-s3-s5-target-board-kits.zip (titled Out-of-Box (OoB) Demonstration (Blinky) Application for S1/S3/S5 Target Board Kits on Renesas site), and clicked the Open button. However, no projects were listed in the Projects section of the window.

A solution is to extract r12an0070eu0105-synergy-oob-demo-for-s1-s3-s5-target-board-kits.zip but the filename needs to be shortened (example oob-demo-for-s1-s3-s5.zip) before extracting to avoid a filename too long error. After extracting I attempted to import again but this time I selected OOB_Demo_TB_S3A6.zip in the subfolder of the extracted zip. OOB_Demo_TB_S3A6 now showed in the Projects section of the window.

After clicking the Finish button I got a dialog window saying 'Your IDE is missing natures to properly support your projects.'. I closed the pop-up, I wasn’t sure if it was an actual issue nor how to fix it.

In the guide on page 14 it says:

Building and running example applications requires a Synergy license to be installed in e2 studio. If this license is not installed, a yellow box is displayed in the lower right hand corner of the ISDE after you have imported your example application.

I did not have such a message but that may be because I had previously used e2 studio.

However I did see warnings about invalid project paths in the Problems section toward the bottom of the window (I had closed the Welcome screen) and the error:

OOB_Demo_TB_S3A6 uses Renesas Synergy Device Support that isn't currently installed. There may be problems building or debugging this project

This may be because I don't have the Synergy Software Package installed. It can be downloaded from:

https://www.renesas.com/en/software-tool/renesas-synergy-software-package-ssp

There's a link to download the user manual and under Downloads further down the page are a number of links. I clicked 'SSP 2.7.0 Platform Installer with e2 studio', which took me to another page to actually download the package.

Note that you need a certain version of e2 studio to use the SSP package. For SSP 2.7.0 it needs e2 studio 2025-01. See Release Note for more info about the SSP release (there’s a link on the previously linked to site).

I closed e2 studio (I don't know if that was actually necessary) and after the SSP package had downloaded I extracted and ran setup_ssp_v2_7_0_e2s_v2025-01.exe. I selected Quick Install, which uses the default installation, and clicked the Next button. After a short while it listed everything it was to install. I hadn't realised that it would install e2 studio 2025-01 in addition to SSP and other software.

I clicked the Next button, accepted the license, clicked the Next button again, and then the Install button.

When it had finished installing I checked the option to launch e2 studio, unchecked the other options, and clicked the OK button. When e2 studio opened I selected the workspace I had used before and clicked the Launch button. However, this caused a pop-up warning because the workspace had been created with a newer version so I used a different workspace.

When e2 studio opened it asked to log in, which I declined, and I closed the Welcome page. I then went through the same process of importing the Blink example as I did using the other version of e2 studio. Although it imported the project, there was a notification of missing software along with the same warnings as before and lots of errors regarding types that couldn't be resolved. This may at least be in part due to the missing path warnings. What is strange is that the files look to be standard files that should be included.

As a test, I selected a new workspace, closed the Welcome window and selected Synergy C/C++ Project from the Project Explorer section. In the pop-up window I selected Renesas Synergy C++ Executable Project as the template option.

You can see this below:

I clicked the Next button and in the next window I entered the project name, as can be seen in the following image:

I clicked the Next button and in the next window (see below) there were various board options to select:

I changed the Board to 'S3A6 TB', which set the Device to R7FS3A6783A01CFP. I left everything else at the defaults and clicked the Next button. This then gave project template options (as below), two of which were Blinky templates. I didn't know that would be available but was very handy.

The difference between Blinky and Blinky with ThreadX is that Blinky runs bare-metal amd Blinky with ThreadX runs using RTOS (Real-Time Operating System). I selected Blinky with ThreadX and clicked the Finish button. It then asked whether I wanted to open the Synergy Configuration perspective, I clicked the Open Perspective button. 

As you can see in the screenshot above, the Synergy Configuration section lists various info in the Summary tab. There are other tabs you can select; BSP, Clocks, Pins, etc.

Selecting the Problems tab further down I saw there was just warning:

Invalid project path: Duplicate path entries found

In case it wasn't actually an issue I tried building the project using Project->Build All. It first did 'Clean-only build of configuration Debug' which failed with 'Build Failed. 1 errors, 0 warnings.' then it did 'Build of configuration Debug' which built without issues. So the clean operation failed seemingly because make clean wasn't supported by the generated makefile but the actual build succeeded.

Looking at the source code it looks like it'll blink any LED(s) available on the board. To see the code, expand the project name (TBS3A6Test in my case) in Project Explorer, then expand src, and double-click the file you want to view (in the example below, blinky_thread_entry.c).

To program the board and try out debugging I connected the board to my laptop and in e2 studio I selected Run->Debug. Note that this also programs the board.

After a few moments a 'Confirm Perspective Switch' dialog appeared. I clicked the Switch button.

As can be seen below the program execution was halted on the call to SystemInit() in startup_S3A6.c, likely part of the startup code.

In blinky_thread_entry.c I set a breakpoint on:

g_ioport.p_api->pinWrite(leds.p_leds[i], level);

Which is line 52. To set a breakpoint simply double-click to the left of the code line.

I then did Run->Resume twice (the first time it didn't go to the line I put the breakpoint  on). I then did Run->Step Over. Because level was set to IOPORT_LEVEL_LOW I did Run->Resume again and now level was set to IOPORT_LEVEL_HIGH. After doing Run->Step Over the board's LED1 was lit.

At this point it was clear that debugging was working. I removed the breakpoint by double-clicking in the same manner as before and then did Run->Resume. The board's LED1 was flashing as expected.

Note that in the Problems section of e2 studio there were two errors:

Incorrect settings for Operation Mode: Device, expected pin USB_FS0.DP to be connected
Incorrect settings for Operation Mode: Device, expected pin USB_FS0.DM to be connected

And one warning:

Unused declaration of variable 'g_heap'

Since I didn't have any issues I didn't see it necessary to investigate the errors and warning.

To stop debugging I used Run->Terminate. The board's LED1 remained on. Pressing the board's RESET button caused the LED to resume flashing.

Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board

The Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board allows compatible boards to access Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n 2.4G) through the Pmod interface.

The product page can be found at:

https://www.renesas.com/en/design-resources/boards-kits/rtk00wfmx0b

At the time of writing this article in 2026 the board is active. No price was listed but I found a site selling it for £25.45 inc VAT ($34.08).

The renesas site gives an overview of the board:

The Wi-Fi PmodTM Expansion Board enables quick prototyping of wireless connectivity solutions using a variety of Renesas microcontroller (MCU) kits. It features an SX-ULPGN, a single-band 2.4GHz 802.11n module based on the Qualcomm QCA4010 System-on-Chip (SoC).

This board supports Renesas RA, Synergy, RX, and RL78 MCUs.

Along with getting started instructions:

1. RA Microcontrollers - In order to use the Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board with an RA MCU evaluation kit, refer to the Wi-Fi example project for that kit.

The project files (including binary/hex files) of the Wi-Fi example project for a kit are provided in the RA example project bundle

The source code of the Wi-Fi example projects are also available at RA FSP Example Projects on GitHub. Browse to ra-fsp-examples/example_projects/<kit_name>/wifi_<kit_name>_ep. Example: ra-fsp-examples/example_projects/ek_ra6m3/wifi/wifi_ek_ra6m3_ep

2. RX Microcontrollers - In order to use Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board with RX Microcontrollers, refer to the CX-RX65N Cloud Kit.

And features:

IEEE 802.11b/g/n compliant, 2.4GHz, HT20, MCS0-7, up to 13-ch
1x1 single stream system
One UART and one HS-UART MCU host interface
Full suite of AT command supports
12dBm~17dBm transmit power
-89dBm~-96dBm receive sensitivity
76mA Rx, 124mA Tx, 13µA standby power consumption
WPA, WPA2, WPS, WEP 64/128 security
Station, AP, Concurrent, Wi-Fi direct operating modes
IPv4/IPv6, TCP/UPD network protocols

Further down the page you will find various links including Quick Start Guide, End Of Life Notice, PCB Design Files, RA Flexible Software Package (FSP), and QuickConnect Platform.

Looking at the Quick Start Guide, which is dated Aug 2020, page 1 has an introduction and overview. There is a link to the Silex website to learn more about the Silex SX-ULPGN module: 

https://www.silextechnology.com/connectivity-solutions/embedded-wireless/sx-ulpgn

Here is a copy of the overview:

Connector CN1 provides access to:

• A high-speed UART interface (HSUART1) 

• A high-speed UART interface (USUART2) 

• An external wakeup interrupt pin (GPIO_IOE1) 

• A mode reset pin (CHIP_PWD_L) 

• VDD and GND connections for module power.

Page 6 has the Pmod pinout, descriptions, location of pin 1, and Electrical Specification.

To identify pin 1: when looking at the pins straight on, pin 1 is top-left. Alternatively, look for the square solder pad on the PCB underside.

As seen in the Electrical Specification section the module is intended to be run from +3.3 V with the maximum being +3.63 V, and minimum +2.97 V.

On page 7 it has the module control and device region information. We can see that the product order code is indicative of the default region setting:

RTK00WFMX0B00000BE is for the EU.
RTK00WFMX0B01000BE is for the US.

It says the device’s region can be changed using the Silex AT command protocol but also says:

the OEM product must ensure if the module is to be configured for US use that the end user cannot change the regulatory setting/the country code.

It then links to the document detailing the specific commands required for changing the module’s country code:

https://www.silextechnology.com/hubfs/Application%20Notes/AppNote-CountryCodeConfigurationforSilexDrivers.pdf

Looking at the schematic available from the renesas site the full module number used by the Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board is SX-ULPGN-2000.

I got a number of identical Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Boards from an eBay job lot, all boxes were sealed but for some reason they are the US version.

On the box top is has written:

Renesas EVALUATION KIT Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board 802.11b/g/n 2.4G Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board

On one side of the box it has the part number RTK00WFMX0B01000BE and date of 2023/01/24 (the date on the boxes of the other Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Boards that I got range from 2022 to 2023). There is also the text ‘Silex PMOD Module(for US)’ even though it also says ‘MADE IN UK’. We know RTK00WFMX0B01000BE is designed for the US so I don’t know why a UK eBay seller had them unless they were imported.

On the bottom of box it lists the key features:

*1x1 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n, HT20, MCS0-7, up to 13-ch

*One UART and one HS-UART MCU host interfaces

*Full suite of AT command supports

*12~17dBm transmit power

*-89~-96dBm receive sensitivity

*76mA Rx, 124mA Tx, 13uA standby power consumption

*WPA, WPA2, WPS, WEP 64/128 security

*Station, AP, Concurrent, Wi-Fi direct operating modes

*IPv4/IPv6, TCP/UPD network protocols

Notice the multiple grammar mistakes.

Also on bottom of box it has getting started instructions:

1. Plug in the Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion board into any standard Type 2A Pmod female connector on any MCU baseboard

2. Refer to “SX-ULPGN Silex AT Command Specification” for operation of Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion board

As well as invite to download doc etc from:

https://www.renesas.com/wi-fi-pmod

It also lists box contents:

Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion board

Disclaimer Card

Unsealing and opening one of the boxes I found the expansion board was in a sealed anti-static bag, and separately EC Declaration of Conformity and WEEE Directive printed notes.

Now looking at the PCB in more detail, note that there may be minor differences with other revisions.

PCB top

CN1 2x6 male header. Pmod interface.
CN2 7-way unpopulated connector. JTAG according to schematic.
CN3 2-way unpopulated connector. Looking at the schematic, bridging CN3 takes PWM2 high. Possibly used for enabling test mode.
CN4 4-way unpopulated connector. Debug UART according to schematic.
CN5 2-way unpopulated connector. Carries USB interface pins for programming and testing.
IC1 SX-ULPGN module from silex technology, Inc. ‘WW Version’ is written on the module.
There is a label on the PCB under the module with the full part number RTK00WFMX0B01000BE.

There are no LEDs, at least a power or status LED would have been helpful.

I couldn’t find dimensions listed anywhere but I measured the PCB to be 44.9mm x 25mm. Including the antenna, which is part of the SX-ULPGN module and sticks out from the PCB, and CN1 pins, which also sticks out from the pcb, the total length is 55.5mm.

For testing I used the EK-RA6M1 (RTK7EKA6M1S00001BU) development board - which I’ve covered on this page - but any board with a compatible Pmod interface should work. Looking at the EK-RA6M1 example projects available from the Renesas site, there is a wifi_on_chip_http_client project but that’s designed for the DA16200 according to the readme. Looking online, DA16200 apparently isn't compatible with SX-ULPGN.

There’s also the NetX_wifi project, which the readme gives an encouraging project overview:

The example project demonstrates the functionalities of NetX Duo WiFi Driver using Azure RTOS running on Renesas RA MCUs using Renesas Silex UART Pmod hardware. The project utilises some functionalities of WiFi_OnChip_Silex module which are not supported by Netx Duo.

It also lists ‘Renesas Silex UART Pmod’ as a hardware requirement, further confirming the NetX_wifi project is indeed compatible with RTK00WFMX0B01000BE. However, there’s still the issue that the Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board may be set to the US region, which I need to change since I live in the UK.

I imported the NetX_wifi project into e2 studio in a new workspace. There were many warnings and errors listed in the Problems section in e2 studio but Project->Build All was successful with 1 warning:

warning: conversion to 'unsigned int' from 'int' may change the sign of the result

I plugged the Wi-Fi Pmod Expansion Board into the EK-RA6M1’s PMOD A (J5) connector. Pin 1 is marked on the EK-RA6M1 PCB so it’s just a matter of lining up with pin 1 on the expansion board. I plugged a micro USB cable from the EK-RA6M1’s DEBUG USB (J11) into my laptop.

In e2 studio I did:

Run->Debug As->Renesas GDB Hardware Debugging.

Note: make sure you first have the project selected in Project Explorer.

When it had programmed the board I switched to the Debug perspective in e2 studio. Execution was paused at SystemInit() in startup.c. I then stepped through the code to see if there were any issues, such as reaching code indicative of an error, but there didn’t seem to be. So I terminated the debug session.

As explained in the NetX_wifi project readme:

The project gives user options to either scan WiFi networks or manually enter network credentials in JlinkRTTViewer and connect.

J-Link RTT Viewer can be downloaded from:

https://www.segger.com/products/debug-probes/j-link/tools/rtt-viewer/

However I already had a version installed (V8.70).

When you open the app it will pop-up with the configuration. I left ‘Connection to J-Link’ at the default of ‘USB’. For ‘Specify Target Device’ I set it to R7FA6M1AD, since that is what EK-RA6M1 uses. I left everything else as default and clicked the OK button.

I then pressed the EK-RA6M1’s reset button and a long message appeared in J-Link RTT Viewer along with menu options toward the end:

Note that in the image above I have scrolled down in order to show the menu options, so a few lines of text have been missed off from the beginning.

The text ‘INFO : wifi_onchip_silex_module initialized successfully’ was a good sign.

I entered ‘1’ to scan for Wi-Fi access points and a message appeared saying ‘Scanning WiFi Access Points’ and then after a few moments it listed six Wi-Fi networks, so clearly the expansion board was working. However, I needed to change its configuration to be suitable for the EU so that it was compliant.

Since the expansion board accepts AT commands it would be possible to use a USB-UART adapter directly with the expansion board. So I disconnected the expansion board from the EK-RA6M1 and wired it to a FT232RL USB-UART adapter. As the expansion board I/O isn’t 5V tolerant, only a USB-UART adapter that uses 3.3V logic levels would be suitable. This particular USB-UART adapter I used has a jumper that can be placed to select 3.3V logic levels. This was how I connected the USB-UART adapter to the expansion board but as I was to find out this was not quite the correct wiring so it's only here as reference and shouldn't be used:

Expansion board USB-UART adapter
Pin 2 HSUART1_TXD RX
Pin 3 HSUART1_RXD TX
Pin 5 GND GND
Pin 6 VDD VCC

There is no pin 1 marked on the USB-UART adapter which is why I haven’t included pin numbers above and have relied on the pin names marked on the PCB.

Next I opened PuTTY (you can use whichever similar prog you want to) and opened a serial connection set to 115200 speed.

However I got no response from the expansion board, even after trying different speeds, but then I then realised I may need to use CHIP_PWD_L (pin 8 on the expansion board), a pin which triggers reset when taken low. So I pulled CHIP_PWD_L to VDD via a 10K resistor and briefly took CHIP_PWD_L low and tried sending a command but still no response. I tried using the Arduino IDE serial monitor and saw that when CHIP_PWD_L was taken low a square appeared.

I switched to using RealTerm, which has the option to display values as hex. Taking CHIP_PWD_L low, 00 appeared when using RealTerm, which must be the reason why the Arduino IDE serial monitor was showing a square (i.e. unrecognised character) yet PuTTY was showing nothing (perhaps because by default it doesn’t showing anything representing non-ASCII characters).

Just in case it was a power issue as the FT232RL can deliver no more than 50mA I measured the current drawn by the expansion board and it was 17mA. This value dropped to 0mA when CHIP_PWD_L was taken low before rising again. So it didn’t seem to be a power issue (if the expansion board was connected to Wi-Fi it may draw more than 50mA, however).

Next, I connected to HSUART2_RXD (pin 9) and HSUART2_TXD (pin 10) of the expansion board instead of HSUART1_RXD and HSUART1_TXD. However, I still only got 00 in RealTerm when CHIP_PWD_L was taken low.

It should be mentioned that the SX-ULPGN module used by the expansion board can operate in different host modes, however, if you look at the expansion board schematic the SX-ULPGN module pin 13 (HSUART2_RTS) is pulled high and pin 18 (SPI_CS_SDIO_CMD) is pulled low, which selects AT mode. Note that these pins have multiple functions.

Next I tried the expansion board’s debug UART, which is on CN4; DEBUG_UART_RXD (pin 2) and DEBUG_UART_TXD  (pin 3). This connector is not normally populated so I soldered a header to the PCB, I also soldered headers for CN2, CN3 and CN5 just in case I needed them. I had difficulty soldering - possibly because I was using leaded solder and the board was designed for lead-free solder - so I had to use plenty of flux.

However, after connecting to DEBUG_UART_RXD and DEBUG_UART_TXD instead of HSUART2_RXD and HSUART2_TXD I got no activity even after taking CHIP_PWD_L low.

I looked at the code in e2 studio and confirmed that uart0 is used at 115200 speed.

I then looked at the EK-RA6M1 schematic and saw that TXD0 was connected to Pmod A pin 2 ( expansion board HSUART1_TXD) and RXD0 pin 3 (expansion board board HSUART1_RXD). In other words TX to TX and RX to RX. I had assumed TX and RX needed to be crossed as is usually the case.

If we look at the SX-ULPGN specification on page 16, HSUART1_TXD is labelled as input and HSUART1_RXD as output.

Connecting RX and TX incorrectly could have damaged the expansion board or the USB-UART adapter (as we shall see later it didn’t, fortunately). Either way, this is another example of how important it is to read the documentation and not make assumptions.

I disconnected the expansion board from the EK-RA6M1 and reconnected it to USB-UART adapter but this time with the following wiring:

Expansion board USB-UART adapter
Pin 2 HSUART1_TXD TX
Pin 3 HSUART1_RXD RX
Pin 5 GND GND
Pin 6 VDD VCC
Pin 8 CHIP_PWD_L -
(pulled up to VDD
with 10K resistor)

I opened a serial connection using speed 115200 and ASCII view in RealTerm (make sure you click the Change button on the Port tab after setting the speed) and when I took CHIP_PWD_L low I got the following message:

We can see the SX-ULPGN firmware version and two dates in 2019.

So now I was in a position to set the region. On page 10 of the ‘Country Code Configuration for Embedded Wireless Modules’ document that I linked to earlier (https://www.silextechnology.com/hubfs/Application%20Notes/AppNote-CountryCodeConfigurationforSilexDrivers.pdf) deals with SX-ULPGN / SX-59HLS. Note: SX-59HLS is basically a more advanced version of SX-ULPGN. Note that it states:

Silex AT command runs on one of the three UART ports of QCA4010/QCA4012. The default is UART1(HS UART), at 115200bps, 8bit, no parity, 1 stop bit, no flow control.

Reading on we can see the command to query/set the current country code is ATWREG. The list of commands are given to set the region:

Country Command
United States (FCC/IC) ATWREG=80000348
JP (MIC) ATWREG=80000188
DE (CE) ATWREG=80000114

The document goes on to say:

The value, if successful, is automatically saved in the profile and NVRAM. This command is only available in releases x.y.2, where .2 is the last digit of the firmware revision. By default when it is x.y.2, atwreg? returns 80000348 which is US. Only country codes in the format 80000xxx are accepted; however only JP, DE, and US are supported (please refer to table shown above). It is imperative that a reset happens after issuing this command. An ATZ command immediately following this command needs to occur or instability may arise.

Fortunately the firmware revision of my module does end in ‘.2’.

So, I used the command atwreg? and got back:

80000348 (US)

Confirming that indeed the module was set to the US region.

I needed to set it to DE (CE) which should mean European. So I issued:

ATWREG=80000114

It responded OK.

I then used the ATZ command, which rebooted (and reloaded the settings), causing the reset message to appear again. I used atwreg? again and got:

80000114 (DE)

In reply, so it’s now set to the correct region.

I did recheck HSUART2 and DEBUG_UART but got nothing from them. HSUART2 is likely disabled, and I don’t know about DEBUG_UART. There are other AT commands that can be used, which will reveal what’s enabled, but I didn’t try them out.

I reconnected the expansion board directly to the EK-RA6M1 without the USB-UART adapter and I used J-Link RTT Viewer to attempt to connect to a Wi-Fi network. While this likely would have worked without changing the region it would have needed to be changed eventually to be compliant.

I did a scan as before then selected the appropriate Wi-Fi access point (AP) by typing the listed index value. I then entered the AP password. Note that by default J-Link RTT Viewer sends a character at a time, which isn’t suitable for sending the password, the solution is to select Send on Enter from Input->Sending… menu. This requires that you press enter after typing the character(s) to send. I connected to my phone’s hotspot rather than the router as that was unsuccessful, likely the signal strength of the router wasn’t high enough. Note: make sure that the AP you are trying to connect to, whether home router or phone, etc., supports 2.4GHz.

As below, after it connected to my phone it listed the MCU IP address and asked for an IP Address/URL to ping so I entered www.google.com. It said the ping was successful.

Note: the red error you can see in the bottom section of the window occurred before I changed the Sending… setting. It didn’t affect functionality, however.

I didn’t try the TCP socket operation as the aim was just to test basic operation which proved successful.

All content of this and related pages is copyright (c) James S. 2025-2026