Access the serial number on MCU

[Gurusanthosh]

Hi Guys,

I am trying to access the serial number written on MCU through software. 

White strip on MCU has details such as PCA10056, 1.0.0, 2018.04, 683xxxxxx. I am trying to find a way to get the 9 digit serial number 683xxxxxx. Most of the documentation is on the device ids and addresses. I could not find a way to access this 9 digit serial number. 

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Santhosh

[Edvin]

Hello Santosh,

The serial number printed on the large MCU on the Development kit is not the serial number of the nRF, but the serial number of the debugger. The device ID is the unique number of the nRF. The nRF is the small chip on the bottom of the picture here. 

[Gurusanthosh]

Hi Edvin, Thanks for the explanation about the device ID of nRF. 

I want to know about the serial number on large MCU. Is there any way to get the serial number printed on MCU?

[Gurusanthosh]

I am planning to assign a small unique identifier to a group of nRF52840 boards. As the serial number on large MCU is easily identifiable, I thought of using this and assign an ID in the main program by maintaining a mapping between serial numbers on large MCU and the internally maintained unique identifiers. 

[Edvin]

You will not be able to access this number from the nRF Firmware. I am sorry. If you want to identify the different DKs, it is probably easier to print a new sticker with the ID of the nRF.

[awneil]

Gurusanthosh said:

I want to know about the serial number on large MCU

The "large MCU" is the on-board J-Link.

So you can also access its serial number using the Segger tools.

In fact, if you have more than one J-Link (any kind of J-Link) connected, the Segger tools will pop up a window listing all the serial numbers, and asking you to choose one

See: https://forum.segger.com/index.php/Thread/6188-SOLVED-Give-friendly-names-to-JLinks

From their Wiki, it seems that the "Nickname" feature has now (from V6.49a) been implemented:

https://wiki.segger.com/J-Link:Nickname

But, as Edvin said, this is not accessible to the nRF device.

[awneil]

Edvin said:

it is probably easier to print a new sticker with the ID of the nRF

I agree.

I always mark my development devices with the MAC address - as that will be reported by any BLE scanning tool without the need for any special software or custom utilities.

And it is available to the microcontroller firmware.

[awneil]

awneil said:

any BLE scanning tool

Well, iOS might obfuscate it...