Please clarify between nRF52 DK, nRF52840 DK and supported chips for Bluetooth LE

[brianreinhold]

I have worked with the nRF51822 and the nRF51 DK and used the pc-ble-driver on the nRF52840 dongle. Now all I am interested in the BTLE development, not mesh. I found out through this forum that the only differences between the various nrf51 chips were what they were licensed for. I forget all the numbers, but this came up when configuring Keil for the nRF51822 (turned out I didn't need to do that but could use the default chip which had some other number).

So what I am asking is can I use the nRF52 DK for developing BTLE peripheral code that will run on the nRF52840 dongle?  Can I use the nRF52 DK for developing BTLE peripheral apps on all nRF52 chips? What would I gain by using the nRF52840 DK? Does the latter only add support for additional features like ZigBee?

Also, what is the lifetime of the nRF52 given the nRF53? Should I move to the nRF53 instead?

Thanks

[Edvin]

Hello,

The nRF52 DK is just the name for the DK holding the nRF52832 (which was the first nRF52 series chip). 

If you intend to run an application on the nRF52840 dongle, I suggest you start with the nRF52840 DK, because that is the same chip as the on that sits on the dongle. Also, it is worth noticing that the dongle is connected to whatever it is plugged into via USB, which is the USB peripheral on the nRF52840 DK. This is not present on the nRF52(832) DK because this chip doesn't have a USB peripheral. The USB port on that DK belongs to the programmer chip. 

Actually, there are a lot of things to consider, but I guess choosing the nRF52840 DK is the "safest" option. It is the superset of all the other chips in the 52 series (almost). It doesn't have the capability of AoA or AoD (direction finding), but that is still a work in progress, I guess. Other than that, the nRF52840 has all the peripherals that the other chips have. They are subsets of the nRF52840. So when you are done with your application, you can look at what you have used. How much memory, what peripherals, and then find the smalles chip that supports your application. Porting the application to the smaller chip should be an easy job. 

That being said, if you already know that you don't need all the memory, and/or all the peripherals, and you don't need Long Range (CODED_PHY), then you could go with the nRF52DK, or the nRF52833 DK if you want to go one step up from the nRF52(832)DK.

Personally, I use the nRF52840 DK for almost everything when trying to replicate customer's issues, because it has all the capabilities. 

Also, this is a great overview for the nRF52 series:

https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/struct_nrf52/struct/nrf52.html

Regarding the 52/53 question:

The nRF53 is a dual core chip, so it has a bit other usecases than the 52 series. For normal BLE peripherals an nRF52 will be enough. The nRF52 is currently our main series and will still be supported for many (!) years. The pricing difference on the nRF52 and the nRF53 would also suggest that the 53 will not take over for the 52. It is intended to work in situations where you need more calculation power.

Hopefully this answered some of your questions. Let me know if anything was unclear.

Best regards,

Edvin

[brianreinhold]

Thank you. For some reason I missed the notification for your answer.