Mapping HWID to revision information

[pabigot]

This thread provides some references for those of us who need to have firmware that runs on multiple releases, but don't necessarily know what revisions are in the field. Unfortunately, the new release 2.0 of nWP-21 removes all the tables with HWID to build code, tested versions, and other useful information.

Will that material be re-appearing in a new white paper, preferably with more complete information? Please?

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

Hi

For nRF51 SDK 8.1.0 there is a new function

void nrf_ic_info_get(nrf_ic_info_t* p_ic_info)  

that can be called from your application which returns information about chip revision, RAM size and ROM size. More information in \SDK v8.1.0\components\libraries\ic_info\nrf_ic_info.h

Update 11.6.2015 The above function should work for all nRF51 revisions, i.e. revisions 1, 2 and 3. I have tested it with several SDK versions:

• nRF51 SDK 8.1.0 (compatible with nRF51 rev 3): Works
• nRF51 SDK 6.1.0 (compatible with nRF51 rev 2 and rev 3): Works
• nRF51 SDK 5.2.0 (compatible with nRF51 rev 2): Works
• nRF51 SDK 4.4.2 (compatible with nRF51 rev 1 and rev 2): Works if you replace "SIZERAMBLOCKS" with "SIZERAMBLOCK[0]" in line 22 in nrf51_ic_info.c

To check the IC revision, RAM size and Flash size, copy the nrf51_ic_info.h and nrf51_ic_info.c files from SDK 8.1.0 into the SDK that you are using and call the function mentioned above.

Update 25.5.2016 HWID/FWID list may be described on this thread.

[pabigot]

Even if there is a way to figure out revision, there is still existing code that uses HWID as a table index, for which lack of information is a problem. I had to push a patch to OpenOCD to recognize the QFACA1 chip that's used in the nRF51-DK/Dongle/Beacon since its HWID wasn't in the list of recognized devices. It could be that OpenOCD could use a different way of identifying what the target is, but I wouldn't want to move that way. We really do need that mapping.