transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

[Rup]

I am trying to migrate from using an earlier chip, the 8001 over to nrf52832 because we want to utilize new ble 4.1 features. The issue is we have another micro that was a controller for the 8001. Now I understand 52832 is a full-fledged mcu but we want to keep it as simple as possible and offload the ble stack on our own mcu. Is there a spi-like protocol similar to ACI in the 8001 that we can use with 52832?

[MartinBL]

Hi

You could look into our serialization. With serialization you can use your nRF52 as a so called Connectivity Chip and your other micro as a controller as before. The Serialization feature is hardware independent meaning that you can use UART, SPI, etc. to communicate between the two chips. This independence means that it require a little work and some modifications to work though. And of course you will need to implement some new software on your old micro.

As a side note: the nRF51 in conjunction with S110 V8.0.0 is also BLE V4.1 compliant. If you choose S130 you will even get BLE V4.2 compliance.

[Rup]

I am unclear on the softwaredevice. Is the S130 a software library that can be downloaded? Does that mean I can use nrf51 instead of nrf52 and still be 4.2 compliant?

[MartinBL]

The S130 Softdevice is one of Nordic's proprietary Bluetooth Low Energy protocol stacks. It is freely available here. With the S130 you can use the nRF51 and still be v4.2 compliant.

[Rup]

We need the higher data rate of 4.2(2.5x) and larger packet size (256 bytes). Does nrf51 do this?

[MartinBL]

• nRF51's radio (Reference Manual V3.0, Chapter 17.1.2): "Independent of the configuration of MAXLEN, the combined length of S0, LENGTH, S1 and PAYLOAD cannot exceed 254 bytes."
• nRF52's radio (Product Specs: "Independent of the configuration of MAXLEN, the combined length of S0, LENGTH, S1 and PAYLOAD cannot exceed 258 bytes."
• Both S130 and S132 V2.0.0 have max MTU size of 23 bytes.

[Rup]

Great. I have the information that I was looking for. Thanks!