Can I user other programmers than J-Link?

[Guest]

Hi,

Is it possible to use any other programmer than Segger's J-Links? Is it also possible to program the softdevice without using nRFgo Studio?

[Ole Morten]

Segger's tools are the only ones that are officially supported, but in principle it should be possible to use any SWD compliant programmer or debugger. One thing you need to be aware of, is however that enabling the debug interface (i.e. enabling it to be SWD compliant) requires a certain pin toggling pattern on the SWD pins, as described in the Debug Interface chapter of the nRF51 Reference Manual.

However, nRFgo Studio will not work with anything else than Segger's tools, so you will most likely have to find another way to flash the softdevice. I guess that most tool vendors give a method for programming a hex file, but this is something you need to investigate yourself.

For production programming, it is possible to use for example the Flasher-ARM from Segger, but I believe that also Elnec and Hi-Lo Systems are working on solutions for this. You can try contacting them for details.

[sandeep]

@ole - sorry for commenting on an old question, but am fairly new to nrf51822 development. I already have a EK, as well as a Ulink2 programmer. Can I use your SDK (which I can download) as well as the Ulink programmer to flash nrf51822 breakout boards ?

[Anne van Rossum]

You can also use an ST-link (but you cannot buy them without an evaluation kit). I got the following idea from Sandeep Srinivasa, namely to use a STM32F4DISCOVERY kit (which is under 20 euros). You can find information on how to use OpenOCD to program it on github.com/.../Board:-yunjia-nrf51822.

[andrey]

Correction: You can indeed by an ST-Link without a kit here.

[Millennium Parrot]

Segger sell a range of J-Links from the Lite for about £100 (GBP) to the ultra for £700. I'm not doing software development as that has been sub-contracted, however I need to be able to program a bootloader and application (S110-based). Which is most appropriate/cheapest I can get away with for the 51422?