Matter hardware and memory requirements

Hardware that runs Matter protocol applications must meet specification requirements, including providing the right amount of flash memory and being able to run Bluetooth® LE and Thread or Wi-Fi® concurrently.

Supported SoCs

Currently the following SoCs from Nordic Semiconductor are supported for use with the Matter protocol:

• nRF5340 (Matter over Thread)

• nRF52840 (Matter over Thread)

• nRF54L15 (Matter over Thread)

• nRF54L10 (Matter over Thread)

• nRF54LM20 (Matter over Thread and Matter over Wi-Fi through the nrf7002eb2 shield)

Front-End Modules

SoCs from Nordic Semiconductor that can run the Matter protocol over Thread can also work with external Front-End Modules. For more information about the FEM support in the nRF Connect SDK, see Developing with Front-End Modules and nRF21540 DK.

External flash

For the currently supported SoCs, you must use an external memory with at least 1 MB of flash for nRF52840 and nRF54L10, and 1.5 MB for nRF5340 and nRF54L15. This is required to perform the DFU operation.

Note

The nRF54L15 supports DFU with image compression, which may eliminate the need for external flash. For more details, see MCUboot image compression.

The development kits for the supported SoCs from Nordic Semiconductor are supplied with the MX25R64 type of external flash that meets these memory requirements. However, it is possible to configure the SoCs with different QSPI or SPI memory if it is supported by Zephyr. For this purpose, check the reference design for Nordic DKs for information about how to connect the external memory with SoC, specifically whether the pins are designed for the QSPI or the high-speed SPIM operations.

RAM and flash memory requirements

RAM and flash memory requirement values differ depending on the DK and the programmed sample.

The following tables and bar charts list memory requirement values for Matter samples.

Values are provided in kilobytes (KB).

Table columns are grouped by internal NVM, external NVM (when used), and RAM. Application, MCUboot, upgrade slot, and RAM cells show used and free space separated by /. Other NVM columns list the reserved partition size for that region.

ChartsTables

nRF54L10 emulation on nRF54L15 DKnRF52840 DKnRF5340 DKNordic Thingy:53nRF54L15 DKnRF54L15 TAGnRF54LM20 DKnRF54LM20 DK with nRF7002 EB2

Memory requirements for samples running on the nrf54l15dk.

Sample

Internal NVM (1012 kB)

External NVM (65536 kB)

MCUboot (used)MCUboot (free, 21%)Application (used)Application (free, 20%)Factory dataSettingsApplication DFU (used)Application DFU (free, 19%)

RAM (192 kB)

RAM (used)RAM (free, 100%)

Smoke CO Alarm (Debug)

Smoke CO Alarm (Release)

Template (Debug)

Template (Release)

Note

The release configurations are built with Link-Time Optimization (LTO).

Reference Matter memory layouts

The following tabs show how the Matter stack architecture in the nRF Connect SDK translates to actual memory maps for each of the available Matter platform designs (System-on-Chip, multiprotocol). The memory values match RAM and flash memory requirements listed above.

Each tab shows the memory maps for the development kits supported by the Matter protocol, including two memory maps for the Matter weather station sample, which uses Nordic Thingy:53.

For more information about configuration of memory layouts in Matter, see Partition layout.

nRF54L10 emulation on nRF54L15 DKnRF52840 DKnRF5340 DKNordic Thingy:53nRF54l15 DKnRF54L15 DK with internal memory onlynRF54L15 TAGnRF54LM20 DKnRF54LM20 DK with internal memory only

The following memory map is valid for Matter applications running on the nrf54l15dk.

Internal flash (size: 0xfd000 = 1012 kB)

Bootloader (52 kB)Application (916 kB)Factory data (4 kB)Non-volatile storage (40 kB)

Static RAM (cpuapp_sram) (size: 0x30000 = 192 kB)

SRAM is located at the address ``0x20000000`` in the memory address space of the application.

Static RAM (192 kB)

External flash (size: 0x4000000 = 65536 kB)

Application DFU (916 kB)Free space (64620 kB)

Diagnostic logs RAM memory requirements

Diagnostic logs support requires changing the RAM memory layout by adding three retained RAM partitions to keep the log data persistent across device reboots. The Matter diagnostic logs snippet (matter-diagnostic-logs) adds these RAM partitions and also reduces the amount of SRAM available for the application by the size of the retained partitions. You can adjust the retained partitions for your needs by editing the Matter diagnostic logs snippet (matter-diagnostic-logs) devicetree file for the relevant board.

nRF52840 DKnRF5340 DKNordic Thingy:53nRF54L15 DKnRF54L10 emulation on nRF54L15 DKnRF54LM20 DK

The following RAM memory layout is valid for Matter applications running on the nrf52840dk.

Base Application core SRAM size (size: 0x40000 = 256 kB) SRAM is located at the address 0x20000000 in the memory address space of the application.

Partition	Offset	Size
Application core SRAM primary	0 (0x0)	247,8125 kB (0x3DF40)
Crash retention	247,8125 kB (0x3DF40)	192 B (0xC0)
Network logs retention	248 kB (0x3E000)	6 kB (0x1800)
User data logs retention	254 kB (0x3F800)	2 kB (0x800)