The S115 SoftDevice is a precompiled and linked binary image implementing a Bluetooth® Low Energy protocol stack for the nRF54L Series of System on Chip (SoC)s.
SoC application with the SoftDevice shows the nRF54L Series software architecture. It includes the standard Arm® Common Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) interface for nRF54L hardware, profile and application code, application specific peripheral drivers, and a firmware module identified as a SoftDevice.
A SoftDevice consists of three main components:
- SoC Library: implementation and nRF Application Programming Interface (API) for shared hardware resource management (application coexistence)
- SoftDevice Manager (SDM): implementation and nRF API for SoftDevice management (for example, enabling and disabling the SoftDevice)
- Bluetooth Low Energy protocol stack: implementation of protocol stack and API
The API is a set of standard C language functions and data types provided as a series of header files that give the application complete compiler and linker independence from the SoftDevice implementation. For more information, see Application programming interface.
The SoftDevice enables the application developer to develop their code as a standard Arm Cortex®-M-33 project without having the need to integrate with proprietary Integrated Circuit (IC) vendor software frameworks. This means that any Arm Cortex-M-33-compatible toolchain can be used to develop Bluetooth Low Energy applications with the SoftDevice.
The SoftDevice can be programmed onto compatible nRF54L Series ICs during both development and production.