Nordic SoftDevices on Bare Metal

[TimB]

Hi,

1. Can the Nordic SoftDevices be consumed by a BareMetal ARM GCC compiled application?
   1. Which compiler/linker flags are needed for the application to be able to link the SoftDevice?
2. Is SoftDevices the only way to use a BTLE device on the nRF52840 board?
3. Does the s140 SoftDevice only exist in alpha version? https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/nordic/Products/nRF52840/S140-SD-v5/60624

Thanks!
Br,
Tim

 

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi Tim,

 

Can the Nordic SoftDevices be consumed by a BareMetal ARM GCC compiled application?

1. Which compiler/linker flags are needed for the application to be able to link the SoftDevice?

We support GCC through makefile, and Segger Embedded Studio also uses gcc in their backend.

Please check out the nRF5 SDK available here:

http://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF5_SDK/nRF5_SDK_v14.x.x/

Is SoftDevices the only way to use a BTLE device on the nRF52840 board?

It is the only option that Nordic officially supports. There are 3rd party options, like MyNewt and the Zephyr Project, that has open source BLE stacks for nRF5-devices.

Does the s140 SoftDevice only exist in alpha version? https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/nordic/Products/nRF52840/S140-SD-v5/60624

Yes, this is because the nRF52840 is still in the engineering stage, and has not yet been released as a production grade device. As soon as the nRF52840 is in production, the Softdevice will be out of alpha state.

Cheers,

Håkon

[TimB]

Hi Håkon,

Thank you you very much for your thorough answers. 

Are the SoftDevices usable from both a bare metal application as well as from an RTOS? We are currently running on bare metal only. 

Are there any preliminary dates for a production ready library?

Thanks,

Best,

Tim

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi Tim,

TimB said:

Are the SoftDevices usable from both a bare metal application as well as from an RTOS? We are currently running on bare metal only. 

We have FreeRTOS support in the nRF5 SDK, so you have the option to do bare metal or RTOS with our SoftDevices.

TimB said:

Are there any preliminary dates for a production ready library?

As a generic rule, we in technical support are not allowed to comment on upcoming releases, or roadmap related items.

This is mainly due to the fact that this is not something that we follow closely, so our information is normally not up-to-date.

We recommend that you contact your regional sales manager (RSM for short) to get detailed information about upcoming features and dates. If you do not have the email address of your RSM, send me a private message with your country/location, and I'll give you the email address.

Cheers,

Håkon