Introduction

This page will describe how to use the CC23xx LaunchPad as a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless network processor. A wireless network processor (NP) setup is a dual MCU solution, where an external MCU such as the the CC32xx manages the Bluetooth application layer (Profiles and Services) and sends commands to the CC23xx LaunchPad BLE wireless MCU over a serial interface. In the NP configuration, the BLE Host and Controller protocol stack elements reside on the wireless MCU. Adding BLE to your existing MCU quickly enables IoT capability in an existing closed/cabled design.

Note

A Network Processor is not the same as an HCI LE Controller-only configuration, such as supported by CC2564 and WiLink8 controllers. The CC23xx LaunchPad wireless MCU does not support a standalone LE Controller-only configuration since the TI SimpleLink Low Power F3 SDK (Host and Controller) executes on the CC23xx.

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Supported Interfaces

TI supports uNPI to implement a network processor application, used for establishing a serial data link between a TI SoC and external MCUs or PCs. This interface is an abstraction layer above a serial interface (UART or SPI) that handles sending / receiving data, power management, and data parsing.

Host Test

Developers should consider HostTest for developing a dual-MCU BLE solution if they need to support the Central or multiple GAP roles and are familiar with the HCI and Vendor-Specific (VS) HCI protocol implementation.

A combination of HCI and VS HCI commands/events form the interface to the HostTest app from the application processor. HostTest uses NPI (non Unified version, see link above) to send and receive raw HCI-formatted commands over the serial interface, and pack/unpack them for the BLE stack to process. At the NPI layer all HCI packets are queued up asynchronously. NPI primarily serves to pack and unpack the HCI data structures into byte arrays, all HCI packets are sent in a FIFO manner.

The HCI Vendor Specific interface is described in the TI Vendor Specific HCI Guide. See this document for more information about the TI Vendor Specific (VS) HCI interface.