Pack Content

The Alif Semiconductor Ensemble Device Family Pack contains Device and Board support for:

• Alif Semiconductor Ensemble E1C/E1/E3/E5/E7/E8 AI/ML microcontroller series with up to two Arm Cortex-M55 processors and two Arm Ethos-U55/U85 microNPUs.
• Alif Semiconductor Ensemble E8 DevKit single-board computer with access to all signals and pins for power/performance profiling.
• Alif Semiconductor Ensemble E7 DevKit - D1 single-board computer with access to all signals and pins for power/performance profiling.
• Alif Semiconductor Ensemble E7 AI/ML AppKit - D1 single-board computer with camera/image, motion, and sound sensors, and a display.

This Pack contains:

• Support for Arm Compiler 6 (AC6) and GCC.
• Flash algorithms for the on-chip Flash memory.
• Debug configuration information and SVD files for peripheral awareness.
• SoC peripheral interfaces and CMSIS-Driver for CAN, GPIO, I2C, SAI, SPI, and USART.
• Templates and example projects for uVision IDE and CMSIS-Toolbox (VS Code).

Device Support (DFP)

The device is configured using the Alif Semiconductor Conductor Tool. The device's secure enclave is configured using the Alif Secure Toolkit (SETOOLS), which generates and downloads an Application Table of Contents (ATOC) for the device.

NOTE
Before downloading examples, you must program the ATOC to the device. Usage below contains more information.

Related packs

The following packs are required for this DFP:

    - pack: ARM::CMSIS@^6.2.0               # Arm CMSIS pack 6.2.0 or higher
    - pack: ARM::CMSIS-Compiler@2.1.0       # Arm Compiler pack 2.1.0 or higher (for STDIN/OUT)

E8 DevKit (BSP)

The E8 DevKit Board Support (BSP) part provides the following examples and layers:

The Board layers enable device-agnostic Reference Applications and implement these API interfaces:

E7 DevKit (BSP)

The E7 DevKit Board Support (BSP) part provides the following examples and layers:

The Board layers enable device-agnostic Reference Applications and implement these API interfaces:

E7 AppKit (BSP)

The E7 AppKit BSP part provides the following:

The Board layers enable device-agnostic Reference Applications and implement these API interfaces:

CMSIS Solution Templates

For starting new applications in VS Code, select these templates when using the CMSIS View menu command Create a Solution:

• Alif CMSIS: A bare-metal application for an Alif Ensemble device.
• Alif Zephyr: A Zephyr application (using West) for an Alif Ensemble device.

Usage

The host PC runs SETOOLS (Alif Security Toolkit) that connects to the Alif Semiconductor development board via onboard UART-to-USB interface adapter (PRG_USB). The IDE and debugger connect to development board via debug probes (J-Link, CMSIS DAP, ULINKpro).

SETOOLS

SETOOLS is mandatory for generating and flashing the processor Application Table of Contents (ATOC). The first time you load an image or change the processor setup, an ATOC image containing debug stubs must be generated and flashed onto the device prior to starting a debug session (otherwise, the debug connection will fail). After this is done once, the application can be built, flashed, and debugged without reprogramming the ATOC.

Download SETOOLS from Alif Semiconductor Software & Tools page (requires registration).

Configure Target Device

Latest SETOOLS require target device configuration before the ATOC can be programmed to the device. See Section 4 of the latest Alif Security Toolkit Quick Start Guide for details on different ways to do this.

For automatic configuration using the tools-config executable, just connect Alif Semiconductor development board to the host PC and execute

tools-config -a

Alternatively, to specify target device manually, see the examples below:

To select the correct target device use the tools-config executable

Tasks for VS Code

For VS Code, the CMSIS-Toolbox examples include a tasks.json file that generates and programs the ATOC using SETOOLS with the following tasks:

To run these tasks:

1. Set the variable alif.setools.root in the global settings.json. Use Ctrl+, to open the settings dialog, then switch to text mode and enter (this is required only once):

   json { "alif.setools.root": "C:\\Alif\\SETOOLS", // SETOOLS installation path on your PC :

2. Use Terminal - Run Task from the VS Code menu to execute the SETOOLS configuration task. On Windows, ensure that the default terminal is Git Bash or PowerShell.

Example output:

 *  Executing task: cp './.alif/M55_HE_mram_cfg.json' 'C:\Alif/build/config/M55_HE_mram_cfg.json'; cp './.alif/M55_HP_mram_cfg.json' 'C:\Alif/build/config/M55_HP_mram_cfg.json'; cp './.alif/M55_HP_mram_stub.bin' 'C:\Alif/build/images/M55_HP_mram_stub.bin'; cp './.alif/M55_HE_mram_stub.bin' 'C:\Alif/build/images/M55_HE_mram_stub.bin'; cd 'C:\Alif'; ./app-gen-toc -f 'build/config/M55_HE_mram_cfg.json'; ./app-write-mram -p -d; 

Generating APP Package with:
Device Part# E7 (AE722F80F55D5LS) - 5.5 MRAM / 13.5 SRAM - Rev: B2
- System MRAM Base Address: 0x80580000
- APP MRAM Base Address: 0x80000000
- APP MRAM Size: 5767168
- Configuration file: build/config/M55_HE_mram_cfg.json
- Output file: build/AppTocPackage.bin

Generating Device Configuration for: app-device-config.json
Calculating APP area...
Creating Content Certificates...
2025-07-02 16:26:43,856 - Content Certificate Generation Utility started (Logging to ../build/logs/SBContent.log)
  :
Creating APP TOC Package...
Creating Signature...
Binary File:  ../build/images/M55_HE_mram_stub.bin
2025-07-02 16:26:44,813 - Content Certificate Generation Utility started (Logging to ../build/logs/SBContent.log)
Content Certificate File:  build/images/M55_HE_mram_stub.bin.crt
Signature File:  build/images/M55_HE_mram_stub.bin.sign
Adding ATOC...
APP TOC Package size: 13552 bytes
Creating Signature...
Binary File:  ../build/AppTocPackage.bin
2025-07-02 16:26:45,057 - Content Certificate Generation Utility started (Logging to ../build/logs/SBContent.log)
Content Certificate File:  build/AppTocPackage.bin.crt
Signature File:  build/AppTocPackage.bin.sign
Done!
Writing MRAM with parameters:
Device Part# E7 (AE722F80F55D5LS) - 5.5 MRAM / 13.5 SRAM - Rev: B2
- Available MRAM: 5767168 bytes
[INFO] Burning: ../build/images/M55_HE_mram_stub.bin 0x80000000 ../build/AppTocPackage.bin 0x8057cb10
[INFO] baud rate  55000
[INFO] dynamic baud rate change  Enabled
COM ports detected = 2
-> COM3
-> COM6
Enter port name:COM6
[INFO] COM6 open Serial port success
Maintenance Mode = Enabled 
Authenticate Image:  False
Download Image
build\images\M55_HE_mram_stub.bin[####################]100%: 3040/3040 bytes
Done
       0.07 seconds

Authenticate Image:  False
Download Image
build\AppTocPackage.bin         [####################]100%: 13552/13552 bytes
Done
       0.32 seconds

Links

• Product page
• Alif GitHub Repos
• Support
• User forum