Do I need a new Development board to program an nrf5340 breakout board?

[TomWS]

I'm trying to get into designing with the nRF5340. The test board I'm using is Raytech's MDBT53V-DB, which has no programmer on it, but does have the 10 pin J-Link connector.

I have an older nrf51 Development kit  (PCA10028), I updated the J-Link firmware on it, and I'm using the debug port to connect to the MDBT board.  

Using VS-Code and the latest NRF Connect SDK 2.5.0, I attempted to program the Blinky example on to the board (I know the LEDs are mapped differently) but get an error trying to flash the test device.  I think it's due to memory locking, but also there is a warning that the J-Link interface I'm using won't support debugging.

So, I guess I have two questions:

1. Do I need a new DK so I can debug this board?

2. Is the flashing problem solved with a new DK or do I still have to do something else to be able to flash from VS Code?

TIA

[Kenneth]

Hello,

Typically DK's can program chips of the same type and older nRF chips in general. The DK user guide should state which nRF devices it can support programming (assuming the supply voltage is the same). The nRF51-DK do not support programming of the nRF53 unfortunately, so I recommend to either get an nRF53-DK or a stand-alone SEGGER j-link (these can program the entire supply range).

Kenneth

[TomWS]

Thank you for the fast reply, and since it made me realize getting the newer DK was a reliable solution, that's the way I'm going.

However, the argument that the DK only supports its own or older processors sounds weak to me.  The claim is that these are firmware upgradeable and, in fact, I believe that with this update I installed on my nRF51-DK, it will, at least, also program the nRF52 series processors.

Thank you again.

[PaKa]

You are correct that when you upgrade the nRF51 DK it can program the nRF52 series parts. This is because these are both ARM V7M type devices and these are supported with the firmware running in the SEGGER OBD on those boards. The nRF53 (and nRF91/54) are ARM V8M and these devices requires a different debugging interface. The MCU on the older DKs doesn't have any SW options compatible with V8M so there is no upgrade path to support these parts with those kits. Older nRF52 kits with the same SEGGER OBD (it's a SAM4U from Atmel) will also be restricted to nRF51/52 devices.

All the nRF52/53/91 kits we manufacture today has a different OBD (nRF5340 based) and this will support all our parts. If you have one of these kits it's easy to see as the OBD is much smaller than on the older kits (aQFN package and not TQFP).

[TomWS]

Thank you very much for the very thorough answer.  This is what I was looking for!

You're probably busy and I don't need an answer (as I've ordered the nRF53 DK), but could I infer from this that the older DK could PROGRAM the nRF5340, but couldn't  DEBUG the part?

[PaKa]

Programming of Cortex M devices is done through the debugger interface so programming and debugging are 2 flavors of the same thing. So no, if you can't debug you can't program.