User Guide of nRF5340 DK

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Building upon the two officially recommended workflows, this chapter details, from first principles, how to configure and use the nRF5340 DK on a local workstation. The Nordic nRF Connect SDK (NCS), built on Zephyr, is the preferred toolchain; for most projects, the official guidance is to build within the nRF Connect for VS Code extension.

Introduction to the nRF5340 DK

The nRF5340 DK (PCA10095) is a single-board development kit intended for evaluation and application development on Nordic’s nRF5340 System-on-Chip (SoC).
The nRF5340 is a dual-core SoC based on the Arm® Cortex®-M33 architecture, comprising:

  • a full-featured Arm Cortex-M33F core with DSP instructions, FPU, and the Armv8-M Security Extension, operating at up to 128 MHz, hereafter the application core; and

  • a secondary Arm Cortex-M33 core with a reduced feature set, operating at a fixed 64 MHz, hereafter the network core.

For this board, the appropriate CMake/Zephyr board target in the project is nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpuapp, i.e., the application core of the DK.

General Preparation

  • An nRF5340 DK (PCA10095) connected via USB to the DEBUG port (on-board J-Link OB).

  • SEGGER J-Link drivers / nRF Command Line Tools.

  • If using a command-line workflow: install Python 3, Git, CMake, Ninja, and an appropriate cross-compiler (Zephyr SDK or GNU Arm Embedded). The Zephyr Getting Started Guide provides detailed system requirements and installation steps.

Development in VS Code

  1. Install Visual Studio Code, then add the nRF Connect for VS Code extension pack.

  2. In VS Code, open the left-hand nRF Connect view → Toolchains / SDK management and, following the guided prompts, install the desired NCS version together with a matching toolchain.

  3. Via nRF Connect → Browse Sample, open zephyr/samples/basic/blinky. Choose Add Build Configuration, then in Board target select nrf5340dk/nrf5340/cpuapp/ns. For the first build configuration, pick a compatible board target from the drop-down list.

  4. Connect the DK over USB (DEBUG port). In the extension panel, select the detected device and Flash. Then LED1 should begin blinking.

For a comprehensive walkthrough, consult the official documentation.

Verification

  • The blinky sample relies on Zephyr’s devicetree plus GPIO/LED drivers. Once the board target is selected, the LED mapping to LED1 is resolved automatically—no manual pin configuration is required. After flashing, LED1 blinks with a fixed period.

  • To adjust the blink period, edit SLEEP_TIME_MS in samples/basic/blinky/src/main.c.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

  • Flashing fails / board not detected: Verify the USB cable is connected to the DEBUG port and that J-Link drivers are installed. On Linux, check udev permissions; on Windows, confirm the device appears as a J-Link adapter in Device Manager.

  • Toolchain or dependency missing: Use Toolchains / SDK management in the extension to install or bind the correct versions.

  • Accidentally built for the network core or LED does not blink: Confirm the Board is set to nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpuapp (application core).

  • To identify the serial device associated with a connected development board, open a terminal and execute ls /dev/tty.*. For Nordic boards, the CDC-ACM interfaces are typically enumerated as device nodes with basenames beginning /dev/tty.usbmodem*. In this enumeration, the numeric suffix distinguishes the cores: a suffix of 1 denotes the network core, whereas 3 denotes the application core.

Useful References