nRF52 Toolchain Setup in Mac OS X

Readme.md

Equipment

• MacOS Sierra 10.12.5
• MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)
• nRF52-DK (PCA10040)

Toolchain Setup

1. Install GCC

brew cask install gcc-arm-embedded

2. Download and unzip inside ~/Development/nRF52/

• nRF5-SDK latest in SDK_X.X.X folder
• S132 Soft Device latest in SD132_X.X.X folder
• nRF5 Command Line Tools

3. Install command line tools

brew cask install nrf5x-command-line-tools

4. Change the nRF SDK to use my version of arm-gcc changing the file ~/Development/nRF52/SDK_X.X.X/components/toolchain/gcc/Makefile.posix to reflect the location of my homebrew installed version

GNU_INSTALL_ROOT := /usr/local/Caskroom/gcc-arm-embedded/6-2017-q2-update/gcc-arm-none-eabi-6-2017-q2-update/bin
GNU_VERSION := 5.4.1
GNU_PREFIX := arm-none-eabi

5. Install J-Link Software and Documentation pack for MacOSX 6.14h

Testing

cd ~/Development/nRF52/SDK_14.0.0/examples/peripheral/blinky/pca10040/blank/armgcc
make
make flash

Credits

I just made a concise version of Aaron Eiche's Programming an nRF52 on a Mac

There is no such recipe nrf5x-command-line-tools

$ brew search nrf
homebrew/cask-drivers/nordic-nrf-command-line-tools                 homebrew/cask-drivers/nordic-nrf-connect

So in 2020 it is named type:

brew cask install homebrew/cask-drivers/nordic-nrf-command-line-tools

brew cask install homebrew/cask-drivers/nordic-nrf-command-line-tools

And in 2023, this is

brew install nordic-nrf-command-line-tools

This has now changed to brew install --cask nordic-nrf-command-line-tools

See https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/nordic-nrf-command-line-tools