SAMA7D65-Curiosity

SoC Features

The SAMA7D65 MPU is a high-performance ARM Cortex-A7 CPU-based embedded MPU running up to 1GHz.

The board allows evaluation of powerful peripherals for connectivity, audio and user interface applications, including MIPI-DSI and LVDS w/ 2D graphics, dual Gigabit Ethernet w/ TSN and CAN-FD.

The MPUs offer advanced security functions, like tamper detection, secure boot, secure key stoarge, TRNG, PUF as well as higher-performance crypto accelerators for AES and SHA.

Kit Information

Kit Overview

The SAMA7D65-Curiosity documents can be found on the microchip website, as following: Kit Overview

Access the console

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

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 J35).

Using DEBUG on TTL-to-USB connector (DEBUG J35)

• For Microsoft Windows users: Install the driver of your USB TTL serial cable.
• 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 (J35)
• 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.
  • 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.
    usb 1-1.1.2: new full-speed USB device number 17 using ehci-pci
    usb 1-1.1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001
    usb 1-1.1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
    usb 1-1.1.2: Product: TTL232R-3V3 usb 1-1.1.2: Manufacturer: FTDI
    usb 1-1.1.2: SerialNumber: FTGNVZ04
    ftdi_sio 1-1.1.2:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
    usb 1-1.1.2: Detected FT232RL
    usb 1-1.1.2: Number of endpoints 2 usb 1-1.1.2: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
    usb 1-1.1.2: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64 usb 1-1.1.2: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
    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 type Board Features Binary Description Yocto Project / Poky based demo NAND Flash SAMA7D65 Curiosity Headless linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-headless-sama7d65-2025.02.zip (~ 124 MB) md5: d7a5c032029b97d4074c9a68fdf6be5d Linux4SAM Yocto Project / Poky based demo compiled from tag linux4microchip+sama7d65-2025.02 Follow procedure: Flash the demo Graphics linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-graphics-sama7d65-2025.02.zip (~ 245 MB) md5: 7a16fc419185f8b5946cc111b1222ea1 SD Card image SAMA7D65 Curiosity Headless linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-headless-sama7d65-2025.02.img.bz2 (~ 99 MB) md5: f78afedb6b554c2050855ca6c7a3f01d Linux4SAM Yocto Project / Poky based demo compiled from tag linux4microchip+sama7d65-2025.02 Follow procedure: Create a SD card with the demo Graphics linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-graphics-sama7d65-2025.02.img.bz2 (~ 204 MB) md5: a1b302a0af1e8a968c73910f1b66a3b2 BuildRoot based demo SD Card image SAMA7D65 Curiosity Headless linux4sam-buildroot-sama7d65_curiosity-headless-sama7d65-2025.02.img.bz2 (~ 75 MB) md5: 78510dc9244807d82934490931b46c44 Linux4SAM BuildRoot based demo compiled from tag linux4microchip+sama7d65-2025.02 Follow procedure: Create a SD card with the demo Graphics linux4sam-buildroot-sama7d65_curiosity-graphics-sama7d65-2025.02.img.bz2 (~ 184 MB) md5: b3ad3e579c3169808ae639e88fc1ff40

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:

1. 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
2. Select the device corresponding to your SD card (Etcher proposes you the devices that are removable to avoid erasing your system disk)
3. Click on the Flash! button
4. 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)
5. then the flashing process begins followed by a verification phase (optional)

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

• Your SD card is ready!

Flash the demo

 use SAM-BA 3.9.y onwards. You can download it here: SAM-BA 3.9 release page.

Run script to flash the demo

• download the demo package for the board. They are marked as "Media type: NAND Flash " in the table above
• extract the demo package
• run your usual terminal emulator and enter the demo directory
• make sure that the sam-ba application is in your Operating System path so that you can reach it from your demo package directory
• for Microsoft Windows users: Launch the demo_linux_nandflash.bat file
• for Linux users: Launch the demo_linux_nandflash.sh file
• this script runs SAM-BA 3 and the associated QML sam-ba script (demo_linux_nandflash_usb.qml) with proper parameters
• when you reach the end of the flashing process (this will take a few minutes), the following line is written:

-I- === Done. ===

• connect a serial link on DBGU and open the terminal emulator program as explained just above
• power cycle the board

• monitor the system while it's booting on the LCD screen or through the serial line

Run script to boot in emulation mode

• Make sure the sd card is removed.
• Jumper J36 NAND_BOOT should be closed.
• Run the folowing script to boot the board in emulation mode.
• Microsoft users: Run demo_linux_nandflash_emul.bat file
• Linux users: Run demo_linux_nandflash_emul.sh file
• The script writes the boot configuration packet and the board should boot from NAND flash.

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/

  Information

  !Note: If you already have an old ARM GNU Toolchain need to clean up the PATH with:

  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.

SAM-BA tool

SAM-BA tool is required to add a header in at91bootstrap image (for both manual compilation and through build-systems like Buildroot or Yocto Project). Download SAM-BA software with the following link: https://github.com/atmelcorp/sam-ba/releases/tag/v3.8

Uncompress the tgz file in your workspace with:

Make sure to add the sam-ba application to your $PATH and verify that you have the correct version:

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:

Configure AT91Bootstrap

The source code has been taken from the master branch. You must switch to the specified tag by doing:

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

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

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:

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:

If the building process is successful, the final .bin image is build/binaries/boot-plaintextimg.bin. The boot-plaintextimg.bin, is the boot format to be used for booting the sama7d65 SoC.

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 Linux4SAM GitHub U-Boot repository:

Clone the Linux4sam GitHub U-Boot repository:

The source code has been taken from the master branch. You must switch to the specified tag by doing:

Cross-compiling U-Boot

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

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.

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

Here are the building steps for the SAMA7D65-Curiosity board:

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

Required packages

You must install essential host packages on your build host. These requirements are listed in the Linux kernel documentation with the chapter Install build requirements. You must follow this process which includes, but not limited to, the following packages:

• build-essential
• flex
• bison
• git
• perl-base
• libssl-dev
• libncurses5-dev
• libncursesw5-dev
• ncurses-dev

Getting Kernel sources

To get the source code, you have to clone the repository:

The source code has been taken from the master branch. You must switch to the specified tag by doing:

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/

  Information

  !Note: If you already have an old ARM GNU Toolchain need to clean up the PATH with:

  export PATH=${PATH/':/YOUR/PATH/TO/arm-gnu-toolchain-VERSION-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/'/}

Configure and Build the Linux kernel

Now you have to configure the Linux kernel according to your hardware. We have two default configuration at91 SoC in arch/arm/configs

• at91_dt_defconfig: for SAM9 (ARM926) series chips
• sama5_defconfig: for SAMA5 series chips
• sama7_defconfig: for SAMA7 series chips

At this step, you can modify default configuration using the menuconfig

Now, in the menuconfig dialog, you can easily add or remove some features. Once done, Move to <Exit> with arrows and press this button hitting the Enter key to exit from this screen.

Build the Linux kernel image, before you build you need set up the cross compile toolchain, check this section.

Now you have an usable compressed kernel image zImage.

If you need an uImage you can run this additional step:

If the building process is successful, the final images can be found under arch/arm/boot/ directory.

Build Yocto/Poky 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 AT91 SoC family is included in a particular Yocto Project layer: meta-atmel. The source for this layer are hosted on Linux4SAM GitHub account: https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel

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 AT91 specific or that can facilitate your setup.

Prerequisite

Here are the reference pages for setting up a Yocto Project building environment: What You Need and How You Get It.

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

Step by step build procedure

Once done building, the image will be in ./tmp/deploy/images/sama7d65-curioisty-*/*.wic

How to build Buildroot for sama7d65

Prerequisites

Host build system should be a Linux system with necessary software installed: http://buildroot.uclibc.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#requirement

Note You can install missing packages using yum install with Fedora or apt install with Ubuntu or Debian. These commands may require root privileges or being in a correct sudoers group.

Get sources

To get the source code, you have to clone the buildroot-at91 and buildroot-external-microchip repositories. buildroot-at91 is a fork of Buildroot with a minimal number of patches. The external tree provides changes which will not hit the mainline: additional defconfigs files and packages dedicated to our demos.

Build the rootfs image

To build the the rootfs image that we provide for sama7d65 curiosity, you will have to execute from the directory where you cloned the required repository:

Once compilation is done, have a look to output/images directory to see what has been generated:

All software components are there: booloaders, kernel, device tree and rootfs. The SD Card image ready to be flashed: sdcard.img

Related Topics

• SAMA7D65 ready-made Buildroot images & BSR
• How to patch Device Tree Blob in U-boot using Overlays
• Using the SAMA5D2-compatible ADC device
• Using Systemd
• Thermal management support on SAMA7G5 
• U-Boot FAQ
• How to use the Atmel KMS/DRM LCD driver
• How to use U-boot with FIT image to load overlays