Transfer data over SPI asynchronous in mbed on nRF51DK

[arneme]

I am trying to read data from SPI slave on the nRF51DK using mbed online compiler. To do this the mbed SPI library (class) includes a method called transfer. When I try to use this method I get a compile error indicating that the transfer method does not exist. This is due to the fact that the nRF51DK device.h file does not set the DEVICE_SPI_ASYNCH flag (i.e. #define DEVICE_SPI_ASYNCH 1). Is there a reason for this? I would expect the nRF51DK to support this but that might not be the case? If not, will nRF52 support this?

[Hung Bui]

Hi Arneme,

No, it's not supported on nRF51 yet. Also we don't have DMA for SPI master on nRF51. For nRF52, we may support but I don't know when.

Looking at this, seems that only SiliconLabs' chips supporting this.

[arneme]

So what are my options then? I am trying to read NMEA data from an external GTOP Firefly X1 GPS chip. This chip has a 255 bytes large transfer buffer that I need to read from. Is it possible to include "native" nrf51DK SPI code in an mbed online compiler project? Do I have to export to a offline toolchain (e.g. GCC-ARM) and include "native" nrf51DK SPI code in the exported project? Do I have to abandon mbed and do a full "native" (bare metal or using rtx or freetos OS)?