Oslo, Norway – July 15, 2014 – Nordic Semiconductor ASA (OSE: NOD, Country Manager for Korea: Soo-Cheol Choi, www.nordicsemi.com ), a specialist in Ultra Low Power (ULP) RF, announced the S130 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth Smart (formerly known as Bluetooth Low Energy) protocol stack featuring the latest cutting-edge capabilities that enable the development of advanced wearable Bluetooth Smart hub network topologies, such as wireless sensor-based smartwatches that can operate without a smartphone, based on the Nordic nRF51 series SoC.

The S130 SoftDevice is a Bluetooth 4.1-enabled protocol stack that includes all Bluetooth Smart protocol layers, including GATT/GAP. It supports multi-link central, peripheral, observer, and broadcaster roles, as well as GATT server and client, event-driven, asynchronous, and thread-safe GATT/GAP and L2CAP APIs. The S130's simultaneous support for multi-link central and peripheral operations makes it ideal for developing Bluetooth Smart hubs rather than smartphones or tablets.

Another feature of the S130 SoftDevice is the OTA-DFU (Over-The-Air Device Firmware Upgrade) function based on Nordic's nRF51 series SoC flash architecture to update product firmware in the field.

SoftDevice is an independent software stack for Nordic’s nRF51 series SoCs in which RF protocols and application code are separated in a unique manner. Since the announcement of Nordic’s nRF51 series in June 2012, the performance of SoftDevice has continuously improved through ongoing modifications and changes. SoftDevice is a core element of the unrivaled software architecture of Nordic’s multi-award-winning nRF51 series SoCs.

By using an architecture where the developer's application code is completely separated from Bluetooth Smart, ANT, and 2.4GHz band SoftDevices, engineers find it very convenient as they do not need to integrate their own code as part of vendor-defined application development frameworks. In this separated structure, the stack and application software operate independently, while communication is possible via event-driven APIs when necessary.

Embla Bonnerud, Director of Product Management at Nordic Semiconductor, stated, “The S130 protocol stack is the best advanced Bluetooth Smart solution in conjunction with the nRF51 series SoCs,” and added, “This product supports all Bluetooth Smart features, along with relaxed role restriction features supported by Bluetooth 4.1, which, for example, allow Bluetooth Smart devices to be connected simultaneously with smartphones or multiple sensors. Nordic is able to support complex network topologies of the future by developing core technologies for the nRF51 series SoCs to enable the realization of next-generation wearable devices as well as emerging applications such as residential and industrial automation.”

The S130 alpha release is currently available, and the full production release is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.

The S130 is provided as a SoftDevice for Nordic’s nRF51 series ICs and will be available for customers to download as a pre-compiled binary type that requires no link time with application code.