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  • Case ID: 329002
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How to get started with a Nordic chip (in my case the nRF52832)

Francesco Crevatin

Hi,
I'm new to Nordic Semiconductor chips.

I have experience programming STM32 and Atmel microprocessors.
I would need to program/debug the NORDIC nRF52832 chip, without using their Development Kit, but I have some questions:
1) to be able to program and write code for Nordic chips, is it mandatory to download and install the "nRF Command-Line Tools" program? What software do I need to install (I have Windows);
2) which debugger can I use? Since there are various debuggers on the market and I haven't found one specifically for NORDIC boards, I wonder which ones could be good (ST-LINK, any JTAG, etc..);
3) since the chip uses SWD communication for programming/debugging, is it also necessary to keep the reset pin HIGH correct?
4) which IDE do you recommend? VS Code? Eclipse? Others?

Basically I need to be able to program/debug a NORDIC chip, via SWD pins, and have the simplest and most effective installation of programs on the computer.

Do you have any advice?

Thanks for your attention and your time.
Have a nice day

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  • +1

    Hi

    1) to be able to program and write code for Nordic chips, is it mandatory to download and install the "nRF Command-Line Tools" program? What software do I need to install (I have Windows);

    If you just want to flash the device it is enough with the command line tool which allows you to flash a device with nrfjprog. 

    2) which debugger can I use? Since there are various debuggers on the market and I haven't found one specifically for NORDIC boards, I wonder which ones could be good (ST-LINK, any JTAG, etc..);

    My go-to recommendation would be to develop using a development board, the DK contains a debugger and you only need to connect it to your computer with a usb device. However if you don't plan to use a DK(Which I again would highly recommend for development) I would go for a segger j-link lite for example

    3) since the chip uses SWD communication for programming/debugging, is it also necessary to keep the reset pin HIGH correct?

    No, the reset pin is not needed during programming. The debug access port (DAP) implements a standard ARMRegistered CoreSightTm serial wire debug port (SW-DP), which implements the serial wire debug protocol (SWD). SWD is a two-pin serial interface, see SWDCLK and SWDIO 

    4) which IDE do you recommend? VS Code? Eclipse? Others?

    If you are not working on an existing project then I would recommend that you use the nRF Connect SDK and use VScode as your IDE with the nRF Connect extension

    I would also strongly recommend that you at least have a look at the nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals course to get an intro to our SDK and Zephyr. 

    We also have an older SDK that has been in maintenance mode for the last 4-5 years, this SDK is not recommended for new designs as it has not received any update expect security fixes for the mentioned 4-5 years. 

    Regards

    Runar

Reply
  • +1

    Hi

    1) to be able to program and write code for Nordic chips, is it mandatory to download and install the "nRF Command-Line Tools" program? What software do I need to install (I have Windows);

    If you just want to flash the device it is enough with the command line tool which allows you to flash a device with nrfjprog. 

    2) which debugger can I use? Since there are various debuggers on the market and I haven't found one specifically for NORDIC boards, I wonder which ones could be good (ST-LINK, any JTAG, etc..);

    My go-to recommendation would be to develop using a development board, the DK contains a debugger and you only need to connect it to your computer with a usb device. However if you don't plan to use a DK(Which I again would highly recommend for development) I would go for a segger j-link lite for example

    3) since the chip uses SWD communication for programming/debugging, is it also necessary to keep the reset pin HIGH correct?

    No, the reset pin is not needed during programming. The debug access port (DAP) implements a standard ARMRegistered CoreSightTm serial wire debug port (SW-DP), which implements the serial wire debug protocol (SWD). SWD is a two-pin serial interface, see SWDCLK and SWDIO 

    4) which IDE do you recommend? VS Code? Eclipse? Others?

    If you are not working on an existing project then I would recommend that you use the nRF Connect SDK and use VScode as your IDE with the nRF Connect extension

    I would also strongly recommend that you at least have a look at the nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals course to get an intro to our SDK and Zephyr. 

    We also have an older SDK that has been in maintenance mode for the last 4-5 years, this SDK is not recommended for new designs as it has not received any update expect security fixes for the mentioned 4-5 years. 

    Regards

    Runar

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