BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

[narangmayank]

Hi, 

Can anyone tell me the difference between BLE IPC and BLE RPC implementation? I'm little confused.

Refer to these kconfig symbol,

• SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_HCI_IPC

• SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_RPC

I'm trying to put up the BLE controller on the network core with some interface on app core. Which one to choose for my application?

In addition to this, I also wanted to use RPMsg for data communication between app and net core.

Regards,

Mayank

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Hi,

HCI IPC is the Bluetooth Low Energy on the nRF5340. This is having the BLE Controller on the network core and the BLE Host on the Application core. See Bluetooth Stack Architecture.

RPC is to run both the BLE Controller and the BLE Host on the network core.

• SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_HCI_IPC

• SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_RPC

See Sysbuild images docs, pointing to IPC radio firmware.

RPC uses the RPC library, so you can read those docs if you want to know more.

Which one to choose for my application?

HCI_IPC unless you specifically need RPC. See Kconfig.sysbuild in our samples, most of them use this. See also https://academy.nordicsemi.com/ if you want a more comprehensive course.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

[narangmayank]

Hi,

Thanks for the info, If I got it correctly you are saying that enabling SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_HCI_IPC in sysbuild will run the host on the app core and controller on the net core while the other option (RPC) will run both host and controller in the net core and in this case app core will use RPC services for the communication.

So If I choose to have full BLE stack running on the network core, how to pass on the BLE information back to the app core? Is there any official example in nRF Connect SDK which I can refer?

Regards,

Mayank

[narangmayank]

Hi,

I have gone through the RPC docs and found that it is also a type of IPC and the communication happens via shared memory probably SRAM if I'm not wrong. So can you also tell me the overhead on App core in both of the scenario's?

Regards,

Mayank

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

narangmayank said:

So If I choose to have full BLE stack running on the network core, how to pass on the BLE information back to the app core? Is there any official example in nRF Connect SDK which I can refer?

https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/samples/bluetooth/peripheral_uart/README.html