SAMA7D65 Early Access Curiosity Board - Getting Started Guide for MPLAB® Harmony V3

Last modified by Microchip on 2024/06/20 12:44

Introduction

Thank you for taking the time to evaluate the SAMA7D65 curiosity development board. This instruction will guide you to run the demonstration application that comes with the board. For a deeper dive into the features and capability of the board, refer to the links provided in the "Additional Information" section of this guide.

Confirm the following components are present out of the box:

  • SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board (P/N: EA89C15A)
  • SD Card
  • USB-A to USB-C Cable (power)

Required components not included in the box:

  • Serial to USB Dongle
  • Ethernet Cable

This Getting Started Guide will allow you to perform an Iperf networking test between your PC (acting as TCP Client) and the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board (acting as TCP Server), through your local network infrastructure.

Information

Note: The instructions in this manual are intended for the iperf2 version of the networking test executable running on Windows®. The version is downloadable as provided in the instructions. 

MPLAB® Harmony Demo Setup

Download the iperf.zip from the repository, GitHub-EA89C15A.
Unzip the downloaded iperf.zip file into any directory of your choice. Note the location where the files are unzipped. You will execute the iperf.exe from this location using a terminal to run the TCP Client.
Download the harmony.bin & boot.bin from the repository, GitHub-EA89C15A.
Copy the downloaded harmony.bin and boot.bin to the SD card.

Connect the components as shown in the accompanying image:

Ethernet cable to J14 connector.
SD card inserted on the SD Boot J10 slot (bottom side of the board).
Serial-USB dongle to UART DEBUG J35 header.
USB-A to USB-C  cable to J3 USB-C port for power.

board connection editor

Information

Note:

  • SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board Serial Terminal set up in Step 6 will be referred to as TCP Server terminal.
  • The Host Computer command line started in Step 8 will be referred to as TCP Client prompt. 

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Set Up and Start SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board Serial Terminal

Set up SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board Serial Terminal on Host Computer

On the host computer, open a Serial terminal with the following settings:

  • Baud Rate: 115200
  • Data: 8-bit
  • Parity: None
  • Stop: 1-bit
  • Flow Control: None
Open Putty.
putty icon

On the Category > Connection select Serial then set the configuration.

Information

Note: The Serial Line (COM10) can be confirmed using Window's Device Manager. Set to what the Device Manager assigned line. 

Putty configuration

Press Open.

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Press the RESET (SW4) button on the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board to force a reset.

When the system is ready, the Serial Terminal that was set up in Step 6 should show a prompt. This is the TCP Server terminal on the PC.

Verify that the iperf Harmony application is running and displaying on the TCP Server terminal.
TCP Server terminal
Press the Enter key to show the prompt.
TCP Server terminal

Note the IP Address assigned to the board. The screen shot shows 10.14.63.72. 

Your board will show a different IP Address. Use your board's that IP Address instead of the one given in the screenshot when you run the iperf test.

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Start PC Command Line

On the host computer run a command line application to execute the iperf application.
Open Command Prompt.

Command prompt

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On the TCP Server Terminal opened in Step 6:

Start the TCP Server on the curiosity board by running the following command.

iperf -s -i 1

The TCP Server terminal should show the iperf application started executing and listening to the port: 

TCP Server terminal

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Go to the TCP Client terminal that was opened in Step 8.

Start the TCP Client on the PC by running the following command. Note the IP Address used should match the IP Address recorded in Step 7.3.

iperf -c 10.14.63.72 -p 5001 -i 1 -t 5

This will test the performance of the network transfers between the PC and the Curiosity Board.

The TCP Client terminal should show the results of the test: 

TCP Server terminal

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Go to the TCP Server terminal and confirm the test executed.

The TCP Server terminal should show the results of the test: 

TCP Server terminal

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References

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Troubleshooting

Common

Serial Terminal is not showing anything

There are multiple possible reasons when the terminal does not show anything:

  • Double-check if the RX-TX signals of the serial cable is properly connected to the RX-TX signals of the board.
  • Double-check ground signal is properly connected.
  • Verify if the SD card contains the right files.

Running iperf command in the host terminal results in Connection refused error.

[  1] tcp connect to 10.14.63.70 port 5001 failed (Connection refused) on 2024-05-31 11:43:21 (US Mountain Standard Time)

Verify the IP address used when sending the iperf command matches the target IP address.
Terminal shows RomBoot message.
  • Verify if the SD card contains the right files.
  • Verify that the SD card is inserted properly.

MPLAB Harmony Demo

Running iperf command in the host terminal results Connection refused error.

Verify the IP address used when sending the iperf command matches the target IP address.

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