Need some help with confusion about flash locations and size (nrf52832 + s132 6.1.1 softdevice)

RE: Need some help with confusion about flash locations and size (nrf52832 + s132 6.1.1 softdevice)

Jur — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:30:55 GMT

Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply! Sounds interesting, I will take a look at the different soft devices aswell, thanks for the suggestion!

RE: Need some help with confusion about flash locations and size (nrf52832 + s132 6.1.1 softdevice)

Jur — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:28:56 GMT

Thanks a lot for the reply. I'm glad my calculations are correct. It seems like I was mainly confused because of the incorrect flash size. You are correct, they are leftover FDS pages!

RE: Need some help with confusion about flash locations and size (nrf52832 + s132 6.1.1 softdevice)

Turbo J — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:20:11 GMT

[quote userid="90816" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/65193/need-some-help-with-confusion-about-flash-locations-and-size-nrf52832-s132-6-1-1-softdevice"] does this mean I only have (256 - 155 =) 101kb left for the firmware?[/quote]

Would be correct if you had the 256KB flash variant (NRF52832_XXAB).The _XXAA variant has 512KB flash.

That is why there are smaller softdevices with less features available - the S132 is "too fat" for some application and chip variants.

I don't use desktop nRFConnect app, thus cannot say anything about the graphics.

RE: Need some help with confusion about flash locations and size (nrf52832 + s132 6.1.1 softdevice)

Einar Thorsrud — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:18:18 GMT

Hi,

Your calculations are correct. And using nRF Connect programmer for visualizing the memory layout quickly is a good idea.

nRF Connect Programmer does not really know what is in the flash, so it makes assumptions. All the green sections are seen as application or application data, and the reason they are not consecutive is that there is chunks of erased flash in between for some reason. Perhaps you initialize a lot of FDS pages, or something else? What does your hex file(s) look like if you add them to the programmer app and look at them on the right-side panel? Do you still see all these chunks? If not, then this is because your firmware writes to that flash regions, or because of some "leftovers" from before if you have not done a full chip erase.