Software Development Kit

nRF Connect SDK

Scalable and unified software development kit for building products based on all Nordic's nRF52, nRF53 and nRF91 series wireless devices. It provides developers with an extensible framework for creating size-optimized software for memory-constrained devices as well as powerful and complex software for more advanced devices and applications. It integrates the Zephyr RTOS and a wide range of samples, application protocols, protocol stacks, libraries and hardware drivers.

To develop Bluetooth LE, Thread and Zigbee products, the nRF Connect SDK includes all the necessary software, including protocol stacks. For developing cellular IoT products it contains everything except the LTE modem firmware, which must be downloaded separately from the nRF9160 SiP product page.

The nRF Connect SDK also provides an unique integration with the HomeKit Accessory Development Kit for developing products using both HomeKit over Thread + HomeKit over Bluetooth^® LE. It is a highly optimized solution that enables battery-powered products with both the HomeKit Accessory Protocol (HAP) and application firmware running on a single chip. The nRF Connect SDK provides a single code base for all Nordic devices and software components, simplifying the porting of modules, libraries and drivers from one application to another and thus reducing development time. By enabling developers to choose the essential software components for their application, it ensures high memory efficiency. It is publicly hosted on GitHub, offers source code management with Git and has free nRF Connect for VS Code support. Nordic performs continuous integration testing on the nRF Connect SDK code to ensure robust and secure production-quality code.

Zephyr

This open-source real-time operating system was developed by the Linux Foundation specifically for the Internet of Things applications. It is designed for devices with small and limited memory and a fixed hardware configuration. Zephyr combines a micro-kernel and a nano-kernel into a single uni-kernel. In this way, the performance has been improved and made real-time compatible. Another advantage of Zephyr is its small memory footprint of between 8 KB and 512 KB.

RTOS (Real-time operating system)

RTOS is an operating system in electronic data processing that is capable of meeting the real-time requirements of applications. This means the secure processing of requests from an application program or the arrival of signals via hardware interfaces within a predefined period of time. The need for a real-time operating system arises whenever computers are connected to the physical world in a measuring and/or controlling way. This is the qualitative requirement for a real-time operating system. The quantitative requirement of its real-time behavior results from the application itself. It follows that not every real-time operating system is suitable for every real-time application.