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nRF52840 peripheral driver coverage

Date: 2026-05-29

Authoritative census of the bottom-level (register) drivers in the core, checked against the nRF52840 product-spec instantiation table. "Driver" here means a direct hardware driver shipped in cores/arduino/, not a protocol stack (those are libraries with their own roadmaps).

Complete — every discrete peripheral has a driver

Peripheral Driver Notes
CLOCK (HFCLK/LFCLK) nrfStartHfclk / nrfStartLfclk (NrfClock)
POWER (sleep/OFF/DCDC/RAM-retention) NrfPower SystemOFF + GPIO/NFC/USB wake
RADIO — BLE (NimBLE) NimBLE link-layer controller (libraries/NimBLE/) full host+controller: adv, connections, GATT (HW-verified). NrfBleRadio facade is advertising-only/legacy
RADIO — proprietary 2.4 GHz NrfRadio NEW: raw packet TX/RX, 1/2 Mbit, CRC, RSSI
UARTE0/1 HardwareSerial
SPIM0-3 SPI master
TWIM0-1 Wire master
NFCT NrfNfcTag Type-2 tag emulation
GPIOTE (input) attachInterrupt (wiring) edge events
GPIOTE (output task) NrfGpioteOut PPI-driven pin toggles
SAADC analogRead (wiring) 8 ch, 14-bit
TIMER0-4 NrfTimer 6 CC each, PPI addrs
RTC0-2 NrfRtc 4 CC each, LFCLK
TEMP NrfTemp die temperature
RNG NrfRng TRNG + bias corrector
ECB NrfEcb (NrfCrypto) NEW: AES-128 ECB, FIPS-197 self-test
CCM NrfCcm (NrfCrypto) NEW: AES-CCM BLE packet cipher + MIC
AAR NrfAar (NrfCrypto) NEW: BLE private-address resolver
WDT NrfWdt pause-on-halt
QDEC NrfQdec rotary encoder
COMP NrfComp analog comparator
LPCOMP NrfLpComp NEW: ~1 µA, wakes from System OFF
EGU0-5 / SWI NrfEgu software events
PWM0-3 PWM facade 4 modules / 16 channels
PDM NrfPdm MEMS mic (unverified — needs hw)
I2S NrfI2s digital audio (unverified — needs hw)
MWU NrfMwu 4-region memory watch
QSPI NrfQspi external NOR (unverified — needs hw)
NVMC NrfNvmc flash erase/write
UICR NrfUicr NEW: REGOUT0 3.3V, NFC-pins-as-GPIO, customer[]
USBD NrfUsbd full CDC stack + GDB stub
GPIO (P0/P1) pinMode/digitalWrite
FICR direct reads device ID, EUI-64

Verification status of the new drivers (this pass)

  • NrfEcb — selfTest() runs the FIPS-197 AES-128 known-answer vector on the device; deterministic, hardware-verifiable on a single board.
  • NrfCcm / NrfAar — register-correct per the PS; BLE-PDU framing follows the spec. The NimBLE stack itself is hardware-verified for unencrypted GATT; CCM (link encryption) / AAR (private-address resolution) are exercised only once a paired/bonded peer drives them, which is not yet part of the verified path.
  • NrfLpComp — register-correct; shares the comparator block + IRQ 19 with COMP (mutually exclusive). Exercised by examples/CryptoLpComp.
  • NrfRadio — register-correct per the PS; an on-air link needs a second nRF5x board running examples/RadioPingPong (peer = another nRF5x).
  • NrfUicr — write path enforces the flash 1→0-only rule; setters need a reset to take effect. Not exercised on hardware this pass (a REGOUT0 write is persistent, so it's left for a deliberate board-bring-up step).

All 59 example sketches compile clean against the working-tree core.

Deliberate non-driver items

These are not missing drivers — they're intentional design choices:

  • ACL (flash access-control / region protection) — deferred on purpose. It's a niche IP-protection feature and a footgun (a mis-set region can block flash read/write until reset). Shipping it would mean register offsets I can't verify on hardware here; left out rather than guessed.
  • SPIS / TWIS (SPI/I²C slave) — the same SPIM/TWIM silicon in a different mode. This is an Arduino-API-level feature (Wire slave callbacks), not a separate raw peripheral; tracked as an API extension, not a driver gap.
  • CRYPTOCELL (CC310) — hardware accelerator via the separate NiusCrypto library (CRYS runtime: SHA-256, HMAC, AES-CBC/CTR, ECDSA/ECDH P-256, TRNG on CryptoCell; Oberon for AES-GCM). The in-package libraries/CC310/ shim forwards #include <NrfCC310.h> to NiusCrypto (depends=NiusCrypto); smoke test covers TRNG, hash, HMAC, AES-CTR, ECDSA, and ECDH. Verified on physical ProMicro nRF52840 hardware. The on-chip ECB/CCM/AAR above cover hardware AES without the Nordic blob.
  • DAC — does not exist on the nRF52840.

Protocol stacks (libraries, not drivers)

Tracked separately under their own roadmaps: NimBLE, Thread, Zigbee, CC310 (NiusCrypto). See *_INTEGRATION_PLAN.md and the project_wireless_stack_progress memory.