Does ARM mbed built binary file include softdevice ?

[allankliu]

In order to reduce the R&D lead-time, I am trying to use ARM mbed online compiler to build nRF51822 project. I know the mbed Kit will do chip-erase on nRF silicon, so I guess the binary file built with its online compiler should include softdevice for BLE services.

It is really surprise for me, when I build project such as BLE_UART_console, which is an official project under the name of Nordic. The summary shows that project only 19.2KB ROM and 1.6KB RAM.

However its generated file is 384KB in Hex. So the softdevice is included ? And which version is used ?

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi,

The softdevice is included in the HEX-file generated by mbed compiler. For nRF51 DK, the version should be s130 v2.0.0.

I can also find references to older S110 and S130 versions in the mbed GitHub repository, but I do not think these are used anymore.

For nRF52832, softdevice s132 v2.0.0 is used, and for nRF52840, softdevice s140 v5.0.0-1.alpha is used.

You should not confuse actual size of the HEX-file with memory consumption on the chip. You can read more about this in this answer.

Best regards,

Jørgen

[allankliu]

Thanks, very helpful.