what's the difference between different softdevices

[Silvia]

Hi everyone,

I am a beginner developer, I'd like to know what's the difference between different softdevices.

In particular I am using SDK 10.0.0 with softdevice 110 for the PCA10040. Is that a good choice?

Moreover If I load some code examples on it (for instance ble_app_uart), I read that there are only examples for PCA100128. But despite this, I can load the code on my device. So, what's the point to have examples specifically for PCA100128 in the softdevice 110, since I can load them also on other boards?

Thank you for your help!

[awneil]

Here's a summary of the SoftDevices for nRF52

www.nordicsemi.com/.../nRF51-Series-SoC

and for nRF52:

infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp

The fact that an example is stated to be aimed at a particular target does not prohibit it from being usable on others!

[Silvia]

Thank you for your answer.

The link that you posted for nRF52 says that the suggested softdevices are s132, s212 and s332. But if I decide to use s110 for nRF52, are there any big differences? I am using s110 for PCA10040 and there are no problems when I load the code examples on it..

[Anders Strand]

Hi. The S110 is made for the nRF51 which has a Cortex M0 cpu inside. The nRF52 has a cortex M4. The two Soc's are similar in many ways, which is why you can make S110 work on nRF52. However, you will run into problems at some point, depending on what your program does.

To be clear: The S110 is not supported on the nRF52, and using it will give unpredictable behavior

[brianreinhold]

Can this be updated? Some of the links are gone. Also there are 8 variants of SoftDevice and though some are clearly targeted to certain chips, some are not. For example, if I have an nRF52840 dongle and am only interested in BLE, is there any reason for choosing s340 vs s140?