nRF53 Direct Test Mode Question

[gfgf2400a]

Hi,

I followed https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/samples/bluetooth/direct_test_mode/README.html to work with nRF5340 DK PCA10095. I am using latest nRF connect v2.3.0 with no change of board "nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpunet".

Because nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpunet.overlay, ncs,dtm-uart is uart0 therefore I connect FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 to nRF5340 UART0 pins.

UART0		FTDI
TX	P0.20	RX	Yellow
RX	P0.21	TX	Orange
RTS	P0.18	CTS	Brown
CTS	P0.16	RTS	Green
GND		GND	Black

In prj.conf:

# Configure assertions

CONFIG_ASSERT=y

CONFIG_ASSERT_NO_COND_INFO=y

CONFIG_ASSERT_NO_MSG_INFO=y

CONFIG_HW_STACK_PROTECTION=y

# Uart driver

CONFIG_SERIAL=y

CONFIG_CONSOLE=y

CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y

CONFIG_LOG=y

CONFIG_LOG_PRINTK=y

CONFIG_USE_SEGGER_RTT=n

CONFIG_LOG_BACKEND_RTT=n

CONFIG_LOG_BACKEND_UART=y

# Use necessary peripherals

CONFIG_NRFX_TIMER0=y

CONFIG_NRFX_TIMER1=y

CONFIG_NRFX_TIMER2=y

It seems the example uart0 device tree is not configured correctly for this board and main.c !device_is_ready(uart) is true as shown in below screenshot. I used Teraterm with baudrate 19200 and I had no activity. Please let me know what could be the problem here. Thanks.

[Jared]

Hi,

Can you share your build folder?

regards

Jared 

[gfgf2400a]

I double checked uart0 pins from GPIO port 0 for application core remote_shell. I saw zephyr boot string *** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.2.99-ncs2 ***. However, uart0 is not ready due to z_device_is_ready() uart0 dev->state->init_res is 32 while expecting 0 in below images.

UART0		FTDI
TX	P0.20	RX	Yellow
RX	P0.22	TX	Orange
RTS	P0.19	CTS	Brown
CTS	P0.21	RTS	Green
GND		GND	Black

From z_device_is_ready() uart0 dev->state->init_res is 32 while expecting 0

[gfgf2400a]

Jared,

I flashed the unmodified to nRF5340 DK PCA10095 and viewed from Visual Studio Code RTT terminal. I don't think viewing from J-Link RTT viewer should make any difference but I will try it.

Thanks,

[gfgf2400a]

Jared,

I built MS Visual Studio Code to build this DTM. Would this be a problem since https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/samples/bluetooth/direct_test_mode/README.html referenced to the command line?

I used and configured J-Link RTT viewer as you recommended. I still can't get the user interface as I expected. This is all I got from RTT viewer:

Should Nordic update the readme information here? https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/samples/bluetooth/direct_test_mode/README.html

I am expecting that the user interface is similar to what I saw from nrf52 several years ago. A single key allow the users to drive dtm test modes.

[gfgf2400a]

Jared,

I build dtm from the command line with "west build samples/bluetooth/direct_test_mode -b nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpunet -- -DCONFIG_DTM_USB=y". I was able to see this RTT viewer:

I followed https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/samples/bluetooth/direct_test_mode/README.html#direct-test-mode-testing-app, section Connect with RealTerm (Windows) step 3, but I got nothing in the RealTerm: Serial Capture Program area 3?

[gfgf2400a]

The issue I am facing with DTM is direct-test-mode example does not work or does not work consistently with MS Visual Studio Code IDE. I won’t get to the issue at this point.

 I switched to the command line and I was able to see J-Link RTT as Jared mentioned. However my observations are:

1. J-Link RTT viewer is only displays the printk from the network core.
2. J-Link RTT viewer only works with MS Visual Studio Code IDE over SWD. If I reset the board, I won’t see anything because I am not using SWD.
3. From reading https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/nrf/samples/bluetooth/direct_test_mode/README.html#direct-test-mode-testing-app, the user interface to send DTM commands (two-byte HEX numbers) has to be a serial terminal interface as you can see in section “Connect with RealTerm”. I was not be able to able to see anything over this JLinkCDC1 serial.

 I am still can’t get DTM application going. Please let me know if I am missing something here.

 Thanks for your helps in advance,

[gfgf2400a]

Jared,

I did the same procedure for nRF52840 PCA10112, the serial interface works. I was able to transmit reset (0x00 0x00) or transmitter_test (0x80 0x96) and I got back success (0x00 0x00) or failure (0x00 0x01). This tells me that there is definitely an issue with the same DTM software running on nrf5340 network core with remote shell on the application core.

This is my screenshot from RealTerm with nRF52840 PCA10112:

[gfgf2400a]

Hi Jared,

I found the issue with nRF5340. There were 3 serial ports for nRF5340:

I previously used CDC UART ports (COM6 and COM9) for my testing. Those do not work. I tried USB Serial Device (COM10) and it worked for me. We can close this issue now. Thanks for your helps.

 Dennis