What is the use of ATSAM3U2CA-AU in PCA10040?

[Shankar]

Hello,

I was going through the schematic of PCA10040 and I see that the nRF52832 is interfaced to an ATSAM3U2CA-AU. I was under an assumption that nRF52832 itself is a chip with arm core. Why is the additional ARM core used on the board. Sorry am a bit confused now.

I was using a BLE Nano 2 which is built on nRF52832 and I was using the PCA10040 examples all the while. Now I have a very stupid question. Are these codes running on nRF52 alone or is there an additional ARM core used on BLE anano as well? Please help

Regards, Shankar

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi ,

The ATSAM3U2CA-AU MCU on the nRF52 DK (PCA10040) is the Interface MCU, running either SEGGER J-Link OB or mbed OB interface firmware and is used to program and debug the firmware of the nRF52832 IC.

All code in the SDK examples run on the nRF5x IC alone.

Best regards,

Jørgen

[Shankar]

Hello Jorgen,

Thanks a lot for the answer. That clarifies the doubt.

Regards, Shankar

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Happy to help! Please accept the answer by clicking the checkmark next to it if this was helpful!