Additional master/slave questions on BCM20736/7 family

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ShawnA_01
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10 questions asked 5 comments on KBA First comment on KBA

There have been other postings questioning the support of master/slave -- here is some additional information:


1) Does your BLE solution support simultaneous central (master) and peripheral (slave) roles?


<<<Yes - this is a feature of BCM20736/7 with SDK 2.0.1 and later.

2) When running as the central (master) role, how many peripherals (slaves) can the device support pairing with simultaneously?


<<< 8 Max. Default is 4; configurable at boot time. Each connection consumes ~700bytes of RAM.  Search the forum for other posts that describe how to change the default.

3) When running as the central (master) role, how many peripherals (slaves) can the device support retaining pairing/bonding information for in NVM?


<<< Depends on the size of the NVM.  5 by default - stored in the ‘VS’ section; configurable at compile time.  Note:  NVM memory size on the module implementation is 64kbytes.  Each bond requires ~200bytes.


4) When running as both the central (master) and peripheral (slave) roles, how many peripherals (slaves) can the device support pairing with simultaneously?


<<< Answer 7 – Note: The total number of connections cannot exceed 8. If we are the master (and we have no master) then we can support 8 slaves.


5) When running as both the central (master)  and peripheral (slave) roles, how many peripherals (slaves) can the device support retaining pairing/bonding information for in NVM?


<<< Same as #3.


6) Can I use any of these words in a sentence to imply the same function:    server, slave, peripheral?        Which of course means these are also equivalent:  client, master, central?


<<<In terms of definitions and role-playing:  Central (peripheral) role is pretty close to master (slave) role especially when you are talking about a SoC.  The master and slave roles are typically used for Controller.  While Central/Peripheral roles are for device.

Client and server are completely separate.  The server is something that provides service and client is something that uses the service(s) of the server.  There is no dependency of which role the client or server would be although in 80% of the cases client is on the central side and server is on the peripheral side. But in a scenario when a phone (central) connects to a watch (peripheral) the phone can provide Time service while watch is the client for that service.

7) How long does it take a client / server role context switch when operating in a mesh network?

<<< Answered here:  BCM20736 Client Server Switching Time

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