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GigaDevice GD32VF103C-STARTER

Overview

The GD32VF103C-STARTER board is a hardware platform that enables prototyping on GD32VF103CB RISC-V MCU.

The GD32VF103CB features a single-core RISC-V 32-bit MCU which can run up to 108 MHz with flash accesses zero wait states, 128 KiB of Flash, 32 KiB of SRAM and 37 GPIOs.

Hardware

• GD32VF103CBT6 MCU

• 1 x User LEDs

• 1 x USART (USB port with CH340E)

• USB FS connector

• GD-Link on board programmer

• J-Link/JTAG connector

For more information about the GD32VF103 SoC and GD32VF103C-STARTER board:

• GigaDevice RISC-V Mainstream SoC Website

• GD32VF103 Datasheet

• GD32VF103 User Manual

• GD32VF103C-STARTER Documents

Supported Features

The board configuration supports the following hardware features:

Peripheral	Kconfig option	Devicetree compatible
GPIO	CONFIG_GPIO	gd,gd32-gpio
Machine timer	CONFIG_RISCV_MACHINE_TIMER	riscv,machine-timer
Nuclei ECLIC Interrupt Controller	CONFIG_NUCLEI_ECLIC	nuclei,eclic
PWM	CONFIG_PWM	gd,gd32-pwm
USART	CONFIG_SERIAL	gd,gd32-usart

Serial Port

The GD32VF103C-STARTER board has one serial communications port. TX connected at PA9 and RX at PA10.

Programming and Debugging

Before programming your board make sure to configure boot and serial jumpers as follows:

• JP2/3: Select 2-3 for both (boot from user memory)

• JP5/6: Select 1-2 positions (labeled as USART0)

Using GD-Link

The GD32VF103C-STARTER includes an onboard programmer/debugger (GD-Link) which allows flash programming and debugging over USB. There is also a JTAG header (JP1) which can be used with tools like Segger J-Link.

Note

The OpenOCD shipped with Zephyr SDK does not support GD32VF103. You will need to build the riscv-openocd fork. Note that compared with OpenOCD, J-Link offers a better programming and debugging experience on this board.

1. Build the Zephyr kernel and the Hello World sample application:

   west build -b gd32vf103c_starter samples/hello_world -- -DOPENOCD=<path/to/riscv-openocd/bin/openocd> -DOPENOCD_DEFAULT_PATH=<path/to/riscv-openocd/share/openocd/scripts>
   

2. Run your favorite terminal program to listen for output. On Linux the terminal should be something like /dev/ttyUSB0. For example:

   minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -o
   

   The -o option tells minicom not to send the modem initialization string. Connection should be configured as follows:

   • Speed: 115200

   • Data: 8 bits

   • Parity: None

   • Stop bits: 1

3. To flash an image:

   west build -b gd32vf103c_starter samples/hello_world
   west flash
   

   You should see “Hello World! gd32vf103c_starter” in your terminal.

4. To debug an image:

   west build -b gd32vf103c_starter samples/hello_world
   west debug