nrf52832 chip recovery issue on custom board

[Aniket_Shet]

Hello,

On one of our custom board with nrf52832, after programming it like 3-4 times it stopped responding on the nrfgostudio as in it was showing no device detected, or readback protection may be set.  chip has previous loaded program on it and it works. In nrfgostudio it gives recover option. I tried recovering from this option but it fails. Then I tried recovering it using nrfjprog from command line but it returns error. I am attaching the log file of that. I was reading on devzone some people having similar issue. most of them had issue with reset pin pulled low or older version of nrfjprog.I probed reset line it remains high when chip is powered. nrfjprog verion is 9.6.0. Is there any other way I can recover this chip?

I wanted to know in what situations the chip can go in this type of state where we are forced to recover the chip.

I used PCA10040 nrf52832 dev kit and segger j-link for programming. custom board has 3.3V supply.

SDK: nRF5_SDK_15.0.0

softdevice: s132_nrf52_6.0.0

[run_ar]

Hi,

The only state I have heard of when the people has been unable to recover the chip is in case the reset line has been held low. But you already say you have checked that the line is high. Just to be sure, could you try to connect the reset line to VDD and run the recovery again?

[Aniket_Shet]

Hello,

Thanx for the reply.

I tried connecting reset pin directly to VDD today, but it gives same error.

Can you also tell me what situations/ways the chip can become read/write protected? like one way I know is to enable option while programming which locks it for readback.

[run_ar]

Well, you could enable readback, but you should still be able to recover the chip. i.e. an erase all will disable readback protection. Since you are not forcing the reset line low (by accident), you should also check your soldering and connection.