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How to develop for nRF51 with gcc
The nRF51 are compact micro controllers with 32-bit ARM® Cortex™ M0 CPU with 256/128KB flash + 16KB RAM and an embedded 2.4GHz transceiver.
There are two editions of nRF51 chips. Both are identical from hardware view, but there is a difference in available Software. nRF51822 chips can communicate via Bluetooth LE. nRF51422/nRF51922 chips can communicate via Bluetooth LE and ANT/ANT+ protocol.
Accessing Bluetooth LE or ANT/ANT+ are regulated via Softdevice. The Softdevice is a CPU read protected Softwaremodule. To get Access to Softdevice binary code you need an Original nRF Development or Evaluation Kit. If you are not sure if you need ANT/ANT+ or only Bluetooth LE, buy an nRF51422 or nRF51922 kit. ANT/ANT+ is more flexible when you need more devices to communicate together.
When you buy an Evaluation Kit you can start to develop Software for nRF51 controllers. But if you want to program other Chips you need to buy an separate J-Link adapter. The development Kit includes more Hardware and an J-Link adapter, but you need the nRFgo Kit to power on the two included microcontrollers. I plan to create an own bord to bring in power and bring out GPIO.
At the moment it is not possible to build Software for nRF51422/nRF51822 chips with completely free open source Software. You need access to
- nRF51 SDK via Evaluation or Development Kit
- Softdevice for Bluetooth LE or ANT/ANT+
If you want to build Software without buying an Evaluation or Development Kit take a look at RFduino or BL600. Both devices are for Bluetooth only.