nrf52840 vs nrf52820 as BLE network controller for nrf9160dk based board design.

[CRD]

We have a board based on the nrf9160dk.

The project is essentially based off the "LTE sensor gateway" project with hcl_lpuart to utilize the nrf52840 for BLE. Chip shortages have made the nrf52840 difficult to source and I'm wondering if we would be able to use the more available nrf52820 (in place of the nrf52840) with minimal changes. The hcl_lpuart build would in the 256kb flash on the nrf52820 and it seems to have the same ble characteristics, fewer GPIO.

Is there something I'm missing or would this be opening up a huge headache?

[Sigurd]

Hi,

Is there something I'm missing or would this be opening up a huge headache?

It depends on the use-case. The nRF52820 have less Flash and RAM. So if you need to support like 20 connections at once, and all have max ATT MTU, data length extension, etc, etc, you might run low on RAM.