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Sama5d27WLSom1-EK

Last modified by Microchip on 2025/08/04 08:47

SoC Features

The SAMA5D2 series is a high-performance, ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-A5 processor based MPU. The Cortex A5 processor runs up to 500MHz and features the ARM NEON SIMD engine a 128kB L2 cache and a floating point unit. It supports multiple memories, including latest-generation technologies such as DDR3, LPDDR3, and QSPI Flash. It integrates powerful peripherals for connectivity (EMAC, USB, dual CAN, up to 10 UARTs, etc.) and user interface applications (TFT LCD controller, embedded capacitive touch controller, class D amplifier, audio PLL, CMOS sensor interface, etc.). The devices offer advanced security functions to protect customer code and secure external data transfers. These include ARM TrustZone, tamper detection, secure data storage, hardware encryption engines including private keys, on-the-fly decryption of code stored in external DDR or QSPI memory and a secure boot loader.

sama5d2.png

Kit Information

Kit Overview

The ATSAMA5D27-WLSOM1-EK1 is ideal for evaluating and prototyping with the SAMA5D27-WLSOM1, Wireless System On Module (SOM) and the SAMA5D27C-LD2G, LPDDR2 System In Package (SIP).

The Evaluation Kit is made up of a baseboard, an ATSAMA5D27-WLSOM1 SOM soldered on the baseboard and an ATSAMA5D27C-LD2G SIP soldered on the SOM.

The ATSAMA5D27-WLSOM1 Module integrates a 2-Gbit LPDDR2SDRAM, a Wi-Fi®/Bluetooth® module, a Secure Element device, a Power Management IC (PMIC), a QSPI memory, a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet PHY. 94 GPIO pins are provided by the SOM for general use in the system.

The baseboard features a wide range of peripherals, as well as a user interface. Connectors and expansion headers allows for easy customization and quick access to leading edge embedded features such as MikroElektronica Click Boards™.

The Evaluation Kit is supported by mainline Linux distribution as well as bare metal software frameworks allowing you to easily get started with your development.

The SAMA5D27 WLSOM1 EK documents can be found on microchip website, as following:

Kit Overview

Kit User Guide

a5d27_wlsom1_ek1_rev1_board_presentation.jpg

Access the console

The usual serial communication parameters are 115200 8-N-1 :

Baud rate115200
Data8 bits
ParityNone
Stop1 bit
Flow controlNone

Access the console on DEBUG serial port

The serial console can be accessed from the DEBUG port with the help of a TTL-to-USB serial cable (marked as DEBUG J26).

Using DEBUG on TTL-to-USB connector (DEBUG J26)

  • For Microsoft Windows users: Install the driver of your USB TTL serial cable. FTDI-based ones are the most popular, have a look to this page to get the driver: https://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm * Be sure to connect a 3.3V compatible cable and identify its GND pin. Place it properly according to the silkscreen and connect the cable to the board (J26)
    • For Microsoft Windows users: Identify the USB connection that is established, USB Serial Port should appear in Device Manager. The COMxx number will be used to configure the terminal emulator.
      ftdi serial line
    • For Linux users: Identify the serial USB connection by monitoring the last lines of dmesg command. The /dev/ttyUSBx number will be used to configure the terminal emulator.
      [605576.562740] usb 1-1.1.2: new full-speed USB device number 17 using ehci-pci
      [605576.660920] usb 1-1.1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001
      [605576.660933] usb 1-1.1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
      [605576.660939] usb 1-1.1.2: Product: TTL232R-3V3
      [605576.660944] usb 1-1.1.2: Manufacturer: FTDI
      [605576.660958] usb 1-1.1.2: SerialNumber: FTGNVZ04
      [605576.663092] ftdi_sio 1-1.1.2:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
      [605576.663120] usb 1-1.1.2: Detected FT232RL
      [605576.663122] usb 1-1.1.2: Number of endpoints 2
      [605576.663124] usb 1-1.1.2: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
      [605576.663126] usb 1-1.1.2: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64
      [605576.663128] usb 1-1.1.2: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
      [605576.663483] usb 1-1.1.2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0 A /dev/ttyUSB0 node has been created.
  • Now open your favorite terminal emulator with appropriate settings

Demo

Demo archives

Media typeBoardFeaturesBinaryDescription
Yocto Project / Poky based demo
SD Card imageSAMA5D27 WLSOM1 EKHeadlesslinux4sam-oecore-sama5d27_wlsom1_ek-headless-2025.04.img.bz2 (~ 124 MB)
md5: 047c3952fcba8508fdcc7ae686f2851e		Linux4SAM Yocto Project / Poky based demo
compiled from tag linux4sam-2025.04
Follow procedure: #Create_a_SD_card_with_the_demo
Graphicslinux4sam-oecore-sama5d27_wlsom1_ek-graphics-2025.04.img.bz2 (~ 214 MB)
md5: 1729fa51c804ed471b0ea2228f6ba2e3
BuildRoot based demo
SD Card imageSAMA5D27 WLSOM1 EKHeadlesslinux4sam-buildroot-sama5d27_wlsom1_ek-headless-2025.04.img.bz2 (~ 82 MB)
md5: e8264c5b9770ad12899046f96774140b		Linux4SAM BuildRoot based demo
compiled from tag linux4sam-2025.04
Follow procedure: #Create_a_SD_card_with_the_demo
Graphicslinux4sam-buildroot-sama5d27_wlsom1_ek-graphics-2025.04.img.bz2 (~ 205 MB)
md5: 23fd860146f4cb81c9b9e72cfaf95679

Create a SD card with the demo

You need a 1 GB SD card (or more) and to download the image of the demo. The image is compressed to reduce the amount of data to download. This image contains:

  • a FAT32 partition with the AT91Bootstrap, U-Boot and the Linux Kernel (zImage and dtb).
  • an EXT4 partition for the rootfs.

Multi-platform procedure

To write the compressed image on the SD card, you will have to download and install balenaEtcher. This tool, which is an Open Source software, is useful since it allows to get a compressed image as input. More information and extra help available on the balenaEtcher website.

Insert your SD card and launch Etcher:
etcher_sel.jpg

Select the demo image. They are marked as "SD Card image" in the demo table above.
Note that you can select a compressed image (like the demos available here). The tool is able to decompress files on the fly

Select the device corresponding to your SD card (Etcher proposes you the devices that are removable to avoid erasing your system disk)

Click on the Flash! button

On Linux, Etcher finally asks you to enter your root password because it needs access to the hardware (your SD card reader or USB to SD card converter)

then the flashing process begins followed by a verification phase (optional)

etcher_finishing.jpg

Once writing done, Etcher asks you if you want to burn another demo image:

etcher_done.jpg

Information

Your SD card is ready!

 

Build From source code

Setup ARM Cross Compiler

  • First step is to dowload the ARM GNU Toolchain:
    wget -c https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu/13.2.rel1/binrel/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
  • Next step is to add the ARM GNU Toolchain into your system:
    tar -xf arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
    export CROSS_COMPILE=`pwd`/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-

    or

    tar -xf arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
    export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-
    export PATH=$PATH:/YOUR/PATH/TO/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.Rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/
  • export PATH=${PATH/':/YOUR/PATH/TO/arm-gnu-toolchain-VERSION-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/'/}

Build AT91Bootstrap from sources

This section describes how to get source code from the git repository, how to configure with the default configuration, how to customize AT91Bootstrap based on the default configuration and finally to build AT91Bootstrap to produce the binary. take the default configuration to download U-Boot from NandFlash for example.

Get AT91Bootstrap Source Code

You can easily download AT91Bootstrap source code on the at91bootstrap git repository.

To get the source code, you should clone the repository by doing:

$ git clone https://github.com/linux4sam/at91bootstrap.git
Cloning into 'at91bootstrap'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 17621, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3324/3324), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1029/1029), done.
remote: Total 17621 (delta 2465), reused 3102 (delta 2285), pack-reused 14297
Receiving objects: 100% (17621/17621), 5.65 MiB | 4.65 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (13459/13459), done.
$ cd at91bootstrap/

Configure AT91Bootstrap

Assuming you are at the AT91Bootstrap root directory, you will find a configs folder which contains several default configuration files:

sama5d27_wlsom1_ekqspi_uboot_defconfig
sama5d27_wlsom1_eksd_uboot_defconfig
Information

Tips: qspi means to read quad-SPI serial flash, sd means to read mmc card.

You can configure AT91Bootstrap to load U-Boot binary from SD Card by doing:

$ make mrproper
$ make sama5d27_wlsom1_eksd_uboot_defconfig

If the configuring process is successful, the .config file can be found at AT91Bootstrap root directory.

Customize AT91Bootstrap

If the default configuration doesn't meet your need, after configuring with the default configuration, you can customize it by doing:

$ make menuconfig

Now, in the menuconfig dialog, you can easily add or remove some features to/from AT91Bootstrap as the same way as kernel configuration.
Move to <Exit> with arrows and press this button hitting the Enter key to exit from this screen.

Build AT91Bootstrap

Then you can build the AT91Bootstrap binary by doing:

$ make

If the building process is successful, the final .bin image is build/binaries/at91bootstrap.bin.

Build U-Boot from sources

Getting U-Boot sources

Dedicated page on U-Boot wiki: http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/SourceCode

You can easily download U-Boot source code from Linux4Microchip GitHub U-Boot repository:

  • clone the Linux4microchip GitHub U-Boot repository
        $ git clone https://github.com/linux4microchip/u-boot-mchp.git
     Cloning into 'u-boot-mchp'...
     remote: Enumerating objects: 951876, done.
     remote: Counting objects: 100% (17718/17718), done.
     remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5735/5735), done.
     remote: Total 951876 (delta 12391), reused 15314 (delta 11846), pack-reused 934158
     Receiving objects: 100% (951876/951876), 164.77 MiB | 401.00 KiB/s, done.
     Resolving deltas: 100% (790362/790362), done.
       $ cd u-boot-mchp/
  • The source code has been taken from the master branch which is pointing to the latest branch we use. If you want to use the other branch, you can list them and use one of them by doing:
       $ git branch -r
      origin/HEAD -> origin/master
      origin/dev/tony/sama7g5ek_optee
      origin/master
      origin/sam9x60_curiosity_early
      origin/sam9x60_early
      origin/sam9x60_iar
      origin/sam9x7_early
      origin/sama5d27wlsom1ek_ear
      origin/sama7g5_early
      origin/u-boot-2012.10-at91
      origin/u-boot-2013.07-at91
      origin/u-boot-2014.07-at91
      origin/u-boot-2015.01-at91
      origin/u-boot-2016.01-at91
      origin/u-boot-2016.03-at91
      origin/u-boot-2017.03-at91
      origin/u-boot-2018.07-at91
      origin/u-boot-2019.04-at91
      origin/u-boot-2020.01-at91
      origin/u-boot-2021.04-at91
      origin/u-boot-2022.01-at91
      origin/u-boot-2023.07-mchp
      origin/u-boot-2024.07-mchp
      origin/uboot_5series_1.x

       $ git checkout origin/u-boot-2024.07-mchp -b u-boot-2024.07-mchp
      Branch 'u-boot-2024.07-mchp' set up to track remote branch 'u-boot-2024.07-mchp' from 'origin'.
      Switched to a new branch 'u-boot-2024.07-mchp'

Cross-compiling U-Boot

Before compiling the U-Boot, you need setup cross compile toolchain in the section.

Warning

Latest versions of U-boot (2018.07 and newer) have a minimum requirement of 6.0 version of the GCC toolchain. We always recommend to use the latest versions.

Once the AT91 U-Boot sources available, cross-compile U-Boot is made in two steps: configuration and compiling. Check the Configuration chapter in U-Boot reference manual.

Information

Go to the configs/ to find the exact target when invoking make.

The U-Boot environment variables can be stored in different media, above config files can specify where to store the U-Boot environment.

   # To put environment variables in quad-SPI serial flash:
   sama5d27_wlsom1_ek_qspiflash_defconfig
  # To put environment variables in SD/MMC card:
   sama5d27_wlsom1_ek_mmc_defconfig

Here are the building steps for the SAMA5D27-WLSOM1-EK board:

# You can change the config according to your needs.
make sama5d27_wlsom1_ek_mmc_defconfig
make

The result of these operations is a fresh U-Boot binary called u-boot.bin corresponding to the binary ELF file u-boot.

  • u-boot.bin is the file you should store on the board
  • u-boot is the ELF format binary file you may use to debug U-Boot through a JTag link for instance.

Build Kernel from sources

Build Yocto Project rootfs from sources

Note that building an entire distribution is a long process. It also requires a big amount of free disk space.

The support for Microchip MPU SoC family is included in a particular Yocto Project layer: meta-mchp. The source for this layer are hosted on Linux4Microchip GitHub account: https://github.com/linux4microchip/meta-mchp

Building environment

A step-by-step comprehensive installation is explained in the Yocto Project Quick Build. The following lines have to be considered as an add-on that is MPU specific or that can facilitate your setup.

Step by step build procedure

Note here is the README procedure available directly in the meta-mchp-common layer. This file in the meta-mchp layer repository must be considered as the reference and the following copy can be out-of-sync.

Note starting with Linux4Microchip 2025.04 release, the meta-mchp layer supports Yocto Project templates, so make sure you create a new build environment using oe-init-build-env

OpenEmbedded/Yocto Project BSP layer for Microchip's SoCs

Description

The meta-mchp-common layer consolidates common Board Support Package (BSP) components and metadata for Microchip platforms, streamlining development across various Microchip devices for use with OpenEmbedded and/or Yocto Project.

Supported Machines

The meta-mchp-common layer provides support for various Microchip platforms. For detailed information about supported machines, please refer to the documentation in the relevant sub-layers:

Prerequisites

Before starting, please refer to the Required Packages for Build Host section in the Yocto Project Documentation to install required dependencies for the build environment:

Information

Note: Make sure to install git-lfs and repo in addition to the required packages for your Linux distribution.

For instance, on Ubuntu or Debian, these packages need to be installed on your development host:

sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core git-lfs diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
     build-essential chrpath socat cpio python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect \
     xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping python3-git python3-jinja2 libegl1-mesa libsdl1.2-dev \
     pylint3 xterm repo

Usage

To integrate this layer into your Yocto Project build environment:

Clone the necessary repositories:

Create an empty directory to hold the workspace:

mkdir yocto-dev
cd yocto-dev

Use the repo tool to fetch all the required repositories

Make sure to install the repo utility first.

repo init -u https://github.com/linux4microchip/meta-mchp-manifest.git -b <branch> -m <target>/default.xml

Replace and with the Yocto release branch and the manifest required. For example:

repo init -u https://github.com/linux4microchip/meta-mchp-manifest.git -b scarthgap -m mpu/default.xml

Fetch all the required repositories using the following repo command:

repo sync

Initialize the build environment:

The meta-mchp repository provides sample configuration templates that help set up BitBake layers and key configuration files in the Yocto build directory.

Set the TEMPLATECONF environment variable to point to the appropriate configuration template before initializing the build environment:

export TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-../meta-mchp/<meta-layer>/conf/templates/default}

Replace meta-layer above with the desired layer based on your target platform. For example:

export TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-../meta-mchp/meta-mchp-mpu/conf/templates/default}

Note: Setting TEMPLATECONF is only needed the first time you will run the source command.

Then initialize the Yocto build environment:

source openembedded-core/oe-init-build-env

 

Set the target machine and build the image:

MACHINE=<machine> bitbake core-image-minimal

Each sub-layer provides several images that include demos and applications tailored for its respective platform.

For more information on the supported images, please refer to the README:

* MPU layer README

Layer Dependencies

This layer depends on the following layers:

- meta-openembedded
 - URI: git://git.openembedded.org/meta-openembedded
 - Layers: meta-oe, meta-networking, meta-python

- openembedded-core
 - URI: git://git.openembedded.org/openembedded-core
 - Layers: meta

For information on the specific revisions used, refer to the meta-mchp manifest repository.

Licensing

The contents of this layer are licensed under the MIT License. See COPYING.MIT for details.

Contributing

If you want to contribute changes, you can send Github pull requests at https://github.com/linux4microchip/meta-mchp/pulls.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for additional information about contribution guidelines.

Maintainers

  • Hari Prasath G E <hari.prasathge@microchip.com>
  • Valentina Fernandez Alanis <valentina.fernandezalanis@microchip.com>
  • Dharma Balasubiramani <dharma.b@microchip.com>

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