LVGL ported to Renesas EK-RA8D1

This repository is available in the LVGL Project Creator, making it easy to create and customize a new project in just a few clicks.

Overview

The EK-RA8D1 evaluation kit enables users to effortlessly evaluate the features of the RA8D1 MCU Group and develop embedded systems applications using Renesas’ Flexible Software Package (FSP) and e2 studio IDE. Utilize rich on-board features along with your choice of popular ecosystem add-ons to bring your big ideas to life.

The MCU has a Cortex-M85 core which utilizes the Helium (SIMD) instruction set of Arm. Besides that the chip is equipped with a GPU (called DAVE2D) to off load the MCU.

Buy

You can purchase the Renesas EK-RA8D1 board from many distributors. See the sources at https://renesas.com/ek-ra8d1

Benchmark

During the benchmark 2 frame buffer were used in the external SRRAM. LVGL was configured to LV_DISPLAY_RENDER_MODE_DIRECT and the buffer were swapped on VSYNC to avoid tearing.

As observed in the video, the FPS only drops in highly complex scenarios, while CPU usage remains low. For instance, when multiple ARGB images were rotated, the FPS dropped to 12 and the rendering time increased to 66 ms, but the CPU usage stayed at 10%. Using software rendering only the FPS would be significantly lower, and the CPU usage would peak at 100%.

Check out EK-RA8D1 in action, running LVGL's benchmark demo:

Specification

CPU and Memory

• MCU: R7FA8D1BHECBD (Cortex-M85, 480MHz)
• RAM: 1MB internal, 64MB external SDRAM
• Flash: 2MB internal, 64MB External Octo-SPI Flash
• GPU: Dave2D

Display and Touch

• Resolution: 480x854
• Display Size: 4.5”
• Interface: 2-lane MIPI
• Color Depth: 24-bit
• Technology: IPS
• DPI: 217 px/inch
• Touch Pad: Capacitive

Connectivity

• Camera expansion board
• Micro USB device cable (type-A male to micro-B male)
• Micro USB host cable (type-A male to micro-B male)
• Ethernet patch cable

Getting started

Hardware setup

• Attach the MIPI LCD PCB to the main PCB
• On SW1 DIP switched (middle of the board) 7 should be ON, all others are OFF
• Connect the USB cable to the Debug1 (J10) connector

Software setup

• Install e2 studio for your OS.
  • When prompted, choose "Custom Install".
  • Ensure "RA" is included in your selection of "Device Families" to install.
  • Ensure "Renesas FSP Smart Configurator Core" and "Renesas FSP Smart Configurator ARM" are included in your selection of "Customize Features".
  • Ensure "GNU ARM Embedded 13.2-Rel1" is selected.
• Install FSP Packs. v6.5.1 is required. Download it here under "Assets".
  • On Windows, download the FSP_Packs_v6.5.1.exe file and run it.
  • On Linux, download the FSP_Packs_v6.5.1.zip file and extract it into your packs folder:
    • Locate the e2 studio install location. The most reliable way is to go through Help > CMSIS Pack Management > Renesas RA — the packs location is shown at the top of the menu.
    • If the location is something like ~/.eclipse/com.renesas.platform_808163849/internal/projectgen/ra/packs and the pack was downloaded to Downloads, run:

      unzip -o ~/Downloads/FSP_Packs_v6.5.1.zip -d ~/.eclipse/com.renesas.platform_808163849

      The directory structure in the ZIP overlaps with the packs install location. This is expected. The unzip process will update the directory structure with the new FSP files from the ZIP and preserve any existing FSP packs.

Note: With a recent e2 studio already installed, adding the pack is usually all that is needed. Check that "6.5.1" appears in the FSP version dropdown. Verified on e2 studio 25.10.0.

Run the project

• Clone this repository:

  git clone https://github.com/lvgl/lv_port_renesas_ek-ra8d1_gcc.git

  LVGL itself ships with the FSP LVGL pack, so there are no submodules to check out.

• Open e2 studio and go to File > Open Projects from File System.... Click "Directory", navigate to the cloned project, then click "Finish".

• Ensure "GNU ARM Embedded 13.2-Rel1" is selected as the toolchain in Project > Properties > C/C++ Build > Settings > Toolchain.

• Click the hammer to build the project. If it is greyed-out, first single-click the project "lv_port_renesas_ek-ra8d1_gcc" in the left sidebar and the hammer should become clickable.

• To upload and run the project, click the bug (debug) icon. The debugger will break (stop execution) at the beginning. Click the "Resume" button to continue execution.

• To upload the optimized Release version of the build, open the dropdown next to the bug icon and click "Debug Configurations...". Change the "C/C++ Application:" to start with "Release/" instead of "Debug/". It's also recommended to set the "Build Configuration:" to "Release". Remember to change these settings back if you want a good experience debugging the app.

• To learn more about Renesas's RA family check out this section of the documentation.

Debugging

• In the previous section, the project was run using the debugger. Simply continue using the interactive debugger in e2 studio to debug your program. Set breakpoints, continue, step, etc. as with any other Eclipse-based IDE.

LVGL Pro

FSP 6.5.1 uses LVGL v9.5.0 which you can build your UI for using LVGL Pro.

Check out the official LVGL Pro e2 studio integration documentation.

Notes

e2 studio has a configurator to adjust configuration settings. If you want to change an LVGL config, first check if it's an option present in the FSP Configurator. To get there, open the "FSP Configuration" perspective by clicking the tab in the very top-right corner of the window. Next, open "configuration.xml" by double-clicking it in the "Project Explorer". When you are done, make sure to click "Generate Project Content". For all other configs, src/lv_conf_user.h is the file to edit. ra_cfg/fsp_cfg/lvgl/lvgl/lv_conf.h includes this file and has some defaults which will be set if they are not explicitly set in src/lv_conf_user.h. To see all the possible LVGL configs, look at ./ra/lvgl/lvgl/lv_conf_template.h.

LVGL comes from the FSP so the source code will appear upon building. It can be edited in-place, but changes will be lost if a "clean" is performed.

If you ever change the FSP version, run Project > Clean before building. Clicking the debug icon does not force a full rebuild, and object files left over from the previous FSP (and its bundled LVGL) will link successfully but hard fault at boot with no display output. A build that finishes in seconds after an FSP version change is the tell — a full build takes minutes.

Debug printf output is via the J-Link VCOM port, 921600 8,n,1. You can open any serial terminal on your PC to view it.

Contribution and Support

If you find any issues with the development board feel free to open an Issue in this repository. For LVGL related issues (features, bugs, etc) please use the main lvgl repository.

If you found a bug and found a solution too please send a Pull request. If you are new to Pull requests refer to Our Guide to learn the basics.