Testing requirements for Bluetooth SIG Certification

[molzer]

We are finishing up development of our product and looking into creating our Bluetooth listing. We are using the NRF52840 SoC (Fanstel BT840F model) with softdevice and NRF Connect SDK for development.

As far as I understand it, since Nordic (or zephyr) hasn't certified the profile subsystems for services such as BAS and DIS that we use, our certification will require testing. According to documentation from Nordic on bluetooth certification we should be able to run these tests using the PTS tool ourselves and be done with it.

However when creating our listing in the Bluetooth SIG portal, we are forced to add the RF PHY and LL layers among others to the ICS because of the consistency check. After doing this and downloading the testing specification, the tests for LL and RF PHY are in Category A, which requires a certified test house to perform in order to meet the qualification requirements.

I would assume that since the NRF52840 & SoftDevice controller already is certified that we only need to perform tests that are not covered by the previous certification that already exists. However this doesn't seem to be the case. I cannot add the QDIDs from Nordic at the start of the listing since they are qualified as subsystems and not components.

Are we missing something here? Do we need to go to a test house or can we do it ourselves?

It seems like we shouldn't have to redo the RF PHY and LL testing if that's already been done by Nordic for these designs. In that case, what is the point of using a pre-qualified device if we still need to retest everything?

[Simonr]

Hi

Did you start out with the "no required testing" qualification process? If I recall correctly, no re-testing is needed here, and that the profiles can be tested with PTS as everything else is already tested, you just need to add the host and controller systems as well: https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcomp_matrix_nrf52840%2FCOMP%2Fnrf52840%2Fnrf52840_ble_qdid_qual_matrix.html 

Best regards,

Simon

[molzer]

Hello,

I went with the required testing processes since I was under the impression that we would have required testing because of the used profiles.

So we can run testing for DIS and BAS with PTS and add that to the "no required testing" process?

[Simonr]

Hi again Simon

So, just to avoid any misunderstandings. Can you please elaborate on what all the layers in your project is and what layer(s) returned the inconsistency error? I spoke to our "certification guru" today, and we don't see any dependencies between either BAS or DIS and the lower layers like RFPHY and LL, and so that leads us to think that another profile is causing it. If you're only using BAS and DIS this should be a straightforward PTS test.

It's also worth noting that if you're not in a rush, this issue will likely "fix itself" in July, when there won't be subsystem types anymore, but things in the Bluetooth SIG will only be "components".

Best regards,

Simon

[molzer]

I started with just adding BAS & DIS along with the defaults that were selected when I created a new project with LE host and LE controller. The defaults where GAP, LL, PROD, RFPHY and SUM ICS. When completing the consistency check I also needed to add ATT, GATT, L2CAP and SM.

Full list of layers:

• GAP
• LL
• PROD
• RFPHY
• SUM
• ATT
• GATT
• L2CAP
• SM
• BAS
• DIS

I just tried to create a new project with required testing, end product, LE host, LE controller. Removed the defaults and the added BAS & DIS in the layer selection. Opening the consistency check at this point tells me that GATT is required. GAP is required and LL & RFPHY as well because of PROD (2/4). Adding GATT pulls in ATT as well.

I hope this clarifies what we have done.

Should we go through the "required testing" or "no required testing" process, because at the moment it is a bit confusing.

We could perhaps wait until July if need be, but would prefer to get this finished soon as we are earing up for release soon.

[Simonr]

Okay, but since you're only making a profile subsystem you don't need any of this stuff. You should not check that you are making a host/controller, as you can include those parts from our listings. You can combine a host and controller subsystem from Nordic with your own profile subsystems, and then our listings will already have all the lower layer stuff necessary.

Best regards,

Simon