Too little memory for SoftDevice 113, no valid QDID

[PKaempf]

Dear Madam / Sir,

we started developing a new electronic device which uses Bluetooth 5.0 four years ago and are now ready to certify it. However, during testing we had to realize that using Nordic's SoftDevice 112 will let us fail five out of 97 tests (see appended test summary). This could be remedied with the use of Nordic's SoftDevice 113, but its memory footprint is too large for the hardware we use (Nordic nRF52805). We expect that we can pass some of those five tests using workarounds, but one test in particular (L2CAP/LE/CID/BI-01-C) needs a credit based connection which is not supported in SD112.

Those tests are in detail:
1. L2CAP/LE/CID/BI-01-C -> Needs Credit Based Connection, which is not supported in SD112.
2. SM/PER/PROT/BV-02-C -> Needs apparently the Security Manager, which was optimized out. Will not fit into memory.
3. GATT/SR/UNS/BI-01-C -> Worked with SD113
4. GATT/SR/GAR/BV-06-C -> Still has issues
5. GAP/BOND/NBON/BV-03-C -> also needs Security Manager
We think that we can pass the GATT and Security Manager-related tests, but this will require workarounds.

Given that we would have passed all tests a year ago and the shifting standards pulled the rug from under our feet, all I need is a still valid component QDID on which to base the qualification. However, all the component QDIDs for the 52805 are expired. Please advise how to get a product using your nRF52805 certified in 2024! Long term we have the possibility to switch to a 54-series chip, but those are commercially not yet available. In other words, if we cannot get this design qualified, we will not be able to continue our work as planned.

Regards,

Peter

[PaKa]

So the QDID for the S112 listed in the docs section, 138610, is an end product listing. End product listings do not expire so this is still valid and is the QDID you should reference when using the S112 in a new product. The End Product QDID is valid even if the components it's built up with has expired QDIDs.

Did you use this QDID when trying to register your new design? if not, can you try to use that as that should still be valid and should allow you to register your design with the nRF52805 as is today.

[PKaempf]

Hi PaKa,

of course we tried. But since this QDID is for an end product, no modifications must be made. We, however, need to implement a custom characteristic for our product to function, so we need to start from a component QDID. And Nordic has orphaned those for the nRF52805 (a device they still actively market, btw.).

I wish you could prove me wrong!

Regards,
Peter

[PaKa]

If you mean a "proprietary" characteristic, then you don't need to do anything for that. It is considered outside of BT qualification rules. This would in that case be something that would only affect a profile subsystem, which sits on top of the Nordic end product QDID. So anything you change there would only affect that profile subsystem and not the underlying QDID.

You are allowed to add proprietary characteristics without affecting qualifications.

if this doesn't cover what you are trying to do then please provide more information so we can look into it. Note: we have always told customers to use the End Product QDIDs and almost all designs with nRF devices are using these. If you look at all the products out there you can see clearly that you can use these QDIDs for a wide range of final solutions.