Skip to content

Pro Micro nRF52840

Support for Pro Micro nRF52840-compatible development boards

Support for Pro Micro nRF52840-compatible development boards

Overview

Pro Micro nRF52840 boards are Arduino Pro Micro-compatible development boards based on the nRF52840 SoC. This is a generic board definition that supports multiple variants with compatible pinouts. There are many variants available, including:

  • Compatible:

    • Nice!Nano V2 (official, open-source)
    • SuperMini nRF52840
    • ProMicro nRF52840
    • Mikoto
    • 52840nano (more GPIO)
  • Similar:

    • nRFMicro
    • BlueMicro

All these boards are largely the same in terms of functionality. They vary slightly in pinouts, LED colors, battery charging capabilities and antenna design. Though the board definition is generic, it follows the most common pinout of the Nice!Nano V2.

This board definition is frequently used for building battery-powered custom wireless keyboards. A comprehensive overview of various compatible variants, including their specific features and known issues, can be found at NRF Micro Wiki - Alternatives.

Hardware

The board is pin-compatible with the Arduino Pro Micro and features:

  • nRF52840 SoC with ARM Cortex-M4F CPU
  • 1 MiB Flash, 256 KiB RAM
  • Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0
  • USB-C connector with USB device support (some variants use USB Micro)
  • Single board-provided LED (color varies by variant: blue, red, or green)
  • Arduino Pro Micro form factor

Pin Layout

The board follows the Pro Micro pinout. The following tables show the complete pin mapping:

Complete Pin Mapping

nRF52840 Pin Arduino Pin Function Notes
P0.08 D0 UART RX Serial receive
P0.06 D1 UART TX Serial transmit
P0.17 D2 I2C SDA I2C0 data line
P0.20 D3 I2C SCL I2C0 clock
P0.22 D4 GPIO
P0.24 D5 GPIO
P1.00 D6 GPIO
P0.11 D7 GPIO
P1.04 D8 GPIO
P1.06 D9 GPIO
P0.09 D10 GPIO
- D11 - Not available
- D12 - Not available
P0.15 D13 GPIO LED
P1.11 D14 SPI MISO SPI0 MISO
P1.13 D15 SPI SCK SPI0 SCK
P0.10 D16 SPI MOSI SPI0 MOSI
- D17 - Not available
P1.15 D18 GPIO
P0.02 D19 GPIO
P0.29 D20 GPIO
P0.31 D21 GPIO

Primary Peripherals

Peripheral nRF52840 Pins Arduino Pins Description
UART (USB) Used for STDIO
UART (Serial) P0.08, P0.06 D0, D1 RX, TX
I2C0 P0.17, P0.20 D2, D3 SDA, SCL
SPI0 P0.10, P1.11, P1.13 D16, D14, D15 MOSI, MISO, SCK

The color of the LED may vary between board variants.

Flashing, Bootloader, and Terminal

The board uses the Adafruit nRF52 Bootloader. Refer to the Adafruit nRF52 Bootloader documentation for further details on the flashing process.

Example with hello-world application:

Terminal window
make BOARD=pro-micro-nrf52840 -C examples/basic/hello-world flash term

The terminal will connect to STDIO over USB (USB-CDC).