NRF52832 and NRF52840 Software compatibility

[Looongcat]

Hi guys!

I want to select NRF52840 as my target platform. Is it possible to start software developing on 52832 (for which I have devkit) and then seamlessly move my code to 52840 when I'll have proper devkit or prototype with 52840?

It seems like 52840 will have every peripheral as 52832 has, plus wireless stack is unified for all NRF52 devices, right? So there mustn't be any obvious reasons that that idea won't work.

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi Looongcat. Sorry for the late response.
It should be possible to start developing on your nRF52 DK. I would however recommend getting your nRF52840 PDK first to avoid too much extra work.
The pin assignments is quite different, and the nRF52840 requires the softdevice S140, while the nRF52832 uses softdevice S132.
You can take a look at this comparison sheet for differences between the nRF52-series SoC's.

[MattFL]

Thank you for this post.  Will the sdk examples that work on the 52832 work without changes on the 52840, assuming the proper softdevice is used and the pin assignments are correct in the bsp header file?  We have a working product using the nrf52832 (sdk 14.2.0, s132) based heavily on the ble_app_hids_keyboard example and I'm trying to get a feel for how much work might be involved in porting it to the 52840.  

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi!

It shouldn't be too much work porting your application to use nRF52840 and softdevice S140.
There shouldn't be much difference to the FW code itself, if any at all. At the top of my head, I believe most of the differences should be to assembler flags, defines etc.

I would suggest that you take a look at the examples in our SDK, and look at the differences.

Also, you can take a look at this thread, explaining some of the changes that needs to be done.

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/33123/migrate-project-using-sdk14-1-s132-to-use-s140/127348

If you have any further questions, you are welcome to create a new thread explaining your issues.

Best regards,
Joakim.