Nordic nRF5 Series: nRF52

5
SoftDevices
A SoftDevice is a wireless protocol stack that complements an nRF5 Series SoC. Nordic Semiconductor
provides them as qualified, precompiled binary files. While it is possible to build applications without
using a SoftDevice, all nRF5 SDK example applications that use Bluetooth Low Energy or ANT
™
require a
SoftDevice.
See the compatibility matrices for detailed information about which SoftDevice versions are supported for
each chip. The following table summarizes the usage scenarios for each SoftDevice.
Protocol Role Chip SoftDevice
• nRF51422
• nRF51822
S110Peripheral
• nRF52810
• nRF52832
S112
Central or Peripheral
• nRF51422
• nRF51822
S120
• nRF51422
• nRF51822
S130
• nRF52832
S132
Bluetooth Low Energy
Central and Peripheral
• nRF52840
S140
• nRF51422
S210
ANT
• nRF52832
S212
Peripheral
• nRF51422
S310
Bluetooth Low Energy and ANT
Central and Peripheral
• nRF52832
S332
Table 2: SoftDevice overview
1159720_163 v1.1
8