Adding Custom Board Support in nRF Connect SDK

During your product development journey, you will encounter a stage where you will need to move your firmware from a development kit to your custom hardware design (custom board).
In this developer-oriented webinar, we will dive into the fundamental principles and best practices for seamlessly adding support for a custom board in the nRF Connect SDK.
00:00 Introduction
01:27 What is a “board” in the context of nRF Connect SDK/Zephyr?
03:33 Hardware support hierarchy in nRF Connect SDK/Zephyr
05:30 Hardware support hierarchy - Example
09:08 Drivers
11:40 Naming convention
14:22 Where to define your custom board
16:38 Point the build system to an out-of-tree board
18:30 Board files
34:14 Available boards definitions
36:10 Special considerations for the nRF91/nRF53 Series
41:45 Demo
01:14:50 Extra resources
The presentation is a recording from one of two sessions of live webinars held on October 25, 2023.
The presentation can be downloaded from here: view-su3.highspot.com/viewer/...
#Zephyr

[@rafaelschaiderbastos8213]

these documentation is so valid, thanks so much!!! Looking forward to a full walkthrouth from a custom board to a FOTA using nrfConnect in VScode so many to explore with those features... Thanks again for the amazing work👌

[@user-hu3gn3ng3o]

Great video! Do you have other webinars about adding a custom driver for devices not already included in Zephyr? I have already written the driver, but can't figure out how I'm importing it to zephyr so I can use it in the device tree.

[@NordicSemi]

Yes, we would also recommend this webinar: th-cam.com/video/o-f2qCd2AXo/w-d-xo.html If you continue to have problems, please contact our tech support team on DevZone: devzone.nordicsemi.com

[@tomws6336]

At 48:20, you 'magically' included the CONFIGs needed to support RTT. Great, but where did they come from? I could pause and type in what you've added, but it seems you copied them from somewhere.

[@NordicSemi]

The demoed board in this webinar is quite similar to the nRF52833 DK; therefore, this file was used as a reference point: github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-zephyr/blob/main/boards/arm/nrf52833dk_nrf52833/nrf52833dk_nrf52833_defconfig
We have a Kconfig search that can help you understand the usage of each one: developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/kconfig/index.html

[@BrentBlueAllen]

1:06:46 How did you know in this example that the "reg" property should be set to 28? Does this correspond to the device's I2C address?

[@NordicSemi]

Yes, this is the device's I2C address. This information is different from one device to another and it's usually present in the deviec's datasheet.

[@isd-oj4zr]

How do I know the company name? (yours was nordic semiconductor)

[@ljunq]

For board naming, what if you have multiple versions of the board with the same SOC? Is there a convention for that? Say the devacademy_nrf52833 had different boards with different sensors.

[@NordicSemi]

The convention for naming board revisions is covered in-depth here: docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/zephyr/hardware/porting/board_porting.html#multiple_board_revisions

[@isd-oj4zr]

@ljunq do you know how to choose the company name? His was nordic semiconductor!

[@isd-oj4zr]

why am i not getting the VCOMO on my side bar?

[@NordicSemi]

This depends on if your device has a UART USB converter . All Nordic Development Kits has an onboad debugger that has also a UART USB convertor that provides the VCOMS. Please reach out directly to our tech support team if you got further technical questions devzone.nordicsemi.com/

[@tomws6336]

Again @1:01:49 more 'magic' where all the information about the UART pins magically appears from 'somewhere'. Did the Wizard create these or are they personally parsed from the device specifications and manually typed in.
This may seem obvious to you, but as a total newbie trying to understand how to use this 'new' wizard to create a custom board file, every unexplained action becomes a confusing mystery that seriously detracts from the usefulness of an otherwise useful tutorial.

[@NordicSemi]

When adding pin mapping, you need to manually add them using the macro NRF_PSEL and specify the port and pin as in your schematics. Since the demoed board in this webinar is very similar to the nRF52833 DK, this pinctrl file was used as a reference: github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-zephyr/blob/main/boards/arm/nrf52833dk_nrf52833/nrf52833dk_nrf52833-pinctrl.dtsi
If you are new to nRF Connect SDK / Zephyr, we highly recommend this free course: academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-fundamentals/.
It also cover Kconfig and devicetree basics.

[@tomws6336]

@@NordicSemi Thank you for the fast replies and for the additional information. I appreciate it. Still, as a recommendation, whenever you paste information during your webinar, it really helps the person, who is trying to keep up with it, if you, at least, mention where the pasted information came from. I don't think you need a full link, but, at least, mention that these came from the DK's board files. My expectation is that these would have been copied already, when you used the original board as a template. Obviously not, probably because these are customizations... Thanks again.

[@NordicSemi]

@@tomws6336 There is a link in the description where you can download the presentation.