Which SDK for nRF51822?

[Shankar]

Hello,

Recently I purchased a BLE Nano Kit with MK20/ DAP Link USB Board - Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy Module Development Board from Fab2Lab and I was trying to use the nRF sdk to build examples. When I went to the downloads section of nRF51822, the nRF5_SDK_12.3.0_d7731ad was available for download and I downloaded the same.

Now the problem, according to the tutorial in the developer zone, am supposed to choose a path like SDK/examples/peripheral/board name/blank/armgcc/ but the sdk contains only the following boards

PCA10020 PCA10040 PCA10056

when I check, none of these boards run on nRF51822. How do I proceed from here? Please help. I already have the board but unable to build the SW yet.

regards, Shankar

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi Shankar,

For use with nRF51 series, you should use the PCA10028 projects in the SDK. PCA10028 is the nRF51 DK, which contain nRF51422 IC. This is the same chip as nRF52822, only with support for ANT. Depending on the chip revison on your board, you might have to change RAM/ROM settings in the project. You can see the available RAM/ROM of your chip in the nRF51822 compatibility matrix.

You might also have to create a custom board file for your device if you want external features like LEDs, buttons, etc., to work.

Best regards,

Jørgen

[Shankar]

Ok thanks a lot I will get started. Also I did check the compatibility matrix for nRF51 and I understand for all SDK versions > 12.0 I will have to use a soft device version of S130 (2.0.x) is that correct? If am not mistaken, I will have to build the Application hex file on ARMGCC and them merge the soft device hex file to get the complete version of my software. Is there a way to include soft device in to my link process rather than merging later?

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Yes, S130 v2.0.x is the only softdevice for nRF51 series that is supported by SDK 12.x. If you use ARMGCC, you don't explicitly have to merge the softdevice together with the application hex. If you have installed the nRF5x Command line tools, you can flash the softdevice using the make target make flash_softdevice. The application can be flashed similarly using make flash. The application and softdevice is located in separate sectors in FLASH and RAM, so they can be flashed separately. This allows you to rebuild and flash the application while the softdevice is retained on the chip.