transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

Rup — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 16:02:07 GMT

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

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

MartinBL — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 10:10:15 GMT

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.

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

Rup — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 16:00:08 GMT

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

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

MartinBL — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:38:48 GMT

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.

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

Rup — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:31:04 GMT

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?

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

Rup — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:28:35 GMT

Thanks, yes we do need a separate micro since we require more RAM for the application than the one provided by nrf52.

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

MartinBL — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 10:03:27 GMT

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.

RE: transition from nrf8001 to nrf52832

awneil — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 09:52:09 GMT

No, I'm afraid there isn't.

There is really nothing in common between nRF8001 (which is purely a radio transceiver) and nRF5x (which are "System-on-Chip" devices - including both radio & microcontroller).

Do you really need to keep the separate micro? Why not just port your application onto the nRF52?

Nordic has a "Serialisation" scheme whereby you can treat the nRF52 as just a radio:

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../group__ble__apps__serialization.html

Or you could come up with your own scheme, where the nRF52 handles all the BT and you devise your own interface & protocol between it and your "host" MCU ...