V2 silicon (QFAAEO) to V3 Silicon (QFACA0 or QFAAF0) migration

[David Smoot]

I have a mature design with several hundred units built using QFAAE0 silicon. Code works. Hardware works. FCC is happy.

I'm considering migration to V3 silicon and maybe even the 32KB RAM version. What should I be concerned about? I've got a 5000 piece build starting in a few days and have to buy the silicon very soon.

1. Is the hardware drop in compatible?
2. Will existing hex files (soft device, application, registers, bootloader) drop into the new silicon and "just work"? Obviously I would have to port / upgrade soft device to take advantage of new features. But it appears to me that the code should just work.

I'm leaning towards building with what I know works but if anyone at Nordic can say with confidence that it should work, we'll buy the more expensive 32KB part and go.

Can I just drop the new silicon on the board and expect my old code to work on my old PCB's or is it something that should be carefully tested? Thanks for your time

[Pratyush Dave]

David,

1. The hardware is completely drop-in compatible with rev. 2 silicon.
2. Your existing application and SoftDevice (SD) hex file that you are using and have tested with rev. 2 silicon, will just work with rev. 3 silicon. Yes, if you need to take advantage of the new features of the rev. 3 silicon, including SD support for the extended 16 kB of RAM, you will need to upgrade to the latest version of the SD, and most likely move to the latest version of the nrF51 SDK. Finally, since your existing software & SD combo should "just work" with the rev. 3 silicon, you do not require exhaustive testing - I recommend that you run through a quick test to make sure the code runs as you expect, and you are able to see BLE activity.

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

Hi David

You can see what software has been tested with third revision hardware by looking at the compatibility matrix and more detailed information for nRF51422 is in the PCN-093 v1.1 document, page 3. For migration from rev2 to rev3, look at the nRF51422 migration document nWP-022.