softdevice related doubts

[renu]

Hi all, i would like to know what is the difference between softdevice A and softdevice B? can any one please share information related to it. Thanks

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

Hi

A softdevice is Nordic Semiconductor's protocol stack for the nRF51 series chips. Today there are offered 4 softdevices for the nRF51 series chips, i.e. the nRF51822 and the nRF51422:

S110 softdevice for nRF51822 BLE peripheral device
S120 softdevice for nRF51822 BLE central device
S210 softdevice for nRF51422 ANT device
S310 softdevice for nRF51422 ANT + BLE device

The softdevices are precompiled binaries that are programmed to your device before you program your application. So if you plan to create a BLE peripheral device, you program your nRF51822/nRF51422 with the S110 softdevice and then program your S110 specific application on top of the softdevice. In the nRF51 SDK we have example codes to use with each softdevice.

In fact, the nRF51422 can be used to develop with all softdevices, but is slightly more expensive than the nRF51822 device, so if you only intend to use BLE with your product, i.e. to use either S110 or S120, it is cheaper to use nRF51822 for production. nRF51822 can only be used with S110 and S120 softdevices, you can not use S210 and S310 with the nRF51822.

[renu]

Hi, can u tell me ,how much memory and what is the offset for softdevice A and B?

[Stefan Birnir Sverrisson]

Hi

The flash used by each softdevice is as follows: S110: 80kB S120: 96kB S210: 40kB S310: 128kB

You should also be able to find this information in the Softdevice Specifications for each softdevice, chapter about recource requirements. There you should also be able to find the required RAM and ROM offsets required for any application that is flashed to the nRF51822/nRF51422 on top of a softdevice. The RAM and ROM settings are also preconfigured in all the code examples in the SDK that are for those softdevices.