Matter over Thread added to Nordic’s SDK
Author: EIS Release Date: Oct 13, 2022
Nordic Semiconductor supports the 1.0 version of Matter over Thread with the latest issue (2.1.0) of its nRF Connect software development kit (SDK).
Nordic MatterOverThread
“This support is related to the Connectivity Standard Alliance’s formal adoption of Matter specification version 1.0,” according to the company. “This support allows developers to get started immediately on Matter over Thread development using Nordic’s nRF52840 and nRF5340 SoCs.”
For administrative reasons, said the company, Matter over Thread v1.0 support is rated as ‘experimental’ – and the SDK also has experimental support for Matter over Wi-Fi for the nRF5340 when combined with the nRF7002 Wi-Fi 6 companion IC.
Update: See below for clarification
Beyond SDK v2.1.0, an update is in the pipeline with “bugfixes and small improvements in Matter over Thread” as well as to remove an experimental status associated with Matter over Thread, said Nordic. “Customers can continue using SDK nRF 2.1.0 to conform to the Matter 1.0 specification following some minor manual updates. Matter over Wi-Fi will be raised from experimental to full support when the nRF7002 enters volume production.”
Thread 1.3 is a prerequisite for Matter over Thread, said Nordic, which has already certified the SDK to Thread 1.3. “The certification can easily be inherited by the company’s customers for their own products,” it said.
Matter is a connectivity standard with a common language, intended to allow inter-operability between several wireless standards. It uses a common application layer and data model, and runs on Wi-Fi, Thread and Ethernet network layers, while using Bluetooth LE for commissioning.
Update: Electronics Weekly asked Nordic to clarify the status of the components discussed above, and product manager Krzysztof Loska replied (also see table below) :
A Matter solution consist of few components: the Matter application layer itself but also an underlying wireless networking stack (Thread or Wi-Fi) and a hardware platform. Each of them may be at varying degrees of maturity.
Because we released nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0 a couple of weeks before an official adoption of Matter 1.0, a Matter SDK version which has been integrated into nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0 is still experimental, however it already has a final API and provides all functionalities defined by Matter 1.0.
Though, all underlying components needed to create a Matter over Thread device feature full production maturity level.
Because Matter SDK and nRF Connect SDK are both projects released on github (as nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0 already uses the same API as Matter SDK v1.0.0) it is a straightforward operation for an nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0 user to use a newer version of the Matter SDK which was tagged as 1.0.0 and is no longer experimental -no need for any alignment between Matter SDK v1.0.0 and underlying SW modules present in nRF Connect SDK 2.1.0.
Additionally, as we have mentioned, Nordic will soon release an nRF Connect SDK 2.1.x to provide a native integration of Matter SDK v1.0.0.
On the other hand, our Matter over Wi-Fi solution features several experimental components which will be raised from experimental to full support when the nRF7002 enters volume production.