BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

narangmayank — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 12:09:39 GMT

Okay, Thanks

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

Sigurd Hellesvik — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:22:14 GMT

[quote user="narangmayank"]I'm familiar with NUS service, This requires a physical transport between the cores. Is there any alternate similar to what IPC does?[/quote]

Specifically, this sample has support for:

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

narangmayank — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 09:31:46 GMT

I'm familiar with NUS service, This requires a physical transport between the cores. Is there any alternate similar to what IPC does?

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:07:54 GMT

[quote user="narangmayank"]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?[/quote]

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

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

narangmayank — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 13:50:51 GMT

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

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

narangmayank — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 13:10:58 GMT

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

RE: BLE HCI IPC vs BLE RPC Interface

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:33:55 GMT

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.

[quote user=""]

SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_HCI_IPC
SB_CONFIG_NETCORE_IPC_RADIO_BT_RPC

[/quote]

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.

[quote user=""]Which one to choose for my application?[/quote]

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