nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1 Release Notes

nRF Connect SDK delivers reference software and supporting libraries for developing low-power wireless applications with Nordic Semiconductor products. The SDK includes open source projects (TF-M, MCUboot, OpenThread, Matter, and the Zephyr RTOS), which are continuously integrated and redistributed with the SDK.

The nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1 is an nRF54H20-exclusive release tag, only supporting products based on the nRF54H20 SoC.

Release notes might refer to “experimental” support for features, which indicates that the feature is incomplete in functionality or verification, and can be expected to change in future releases. To learn more, see Software maturity levels.

Highlights

Added the following features as supported:

• nRF54H20 Series:

  • Triggering firmware recovery by pressing a hardware button or calling the respective API. For more information, see ug_nrf54h20_suit_recovery.

  • Global Domain Frequency Scaling (GDFS), optimizing USB suspend power consumption.

  • The support for a new ZMS backend for Settings.

  • Drivers adapted for the following peripherals:

    • UARTE120

    • PWM120

    • SPIM120

    • EXMIF

  • UICR validation support.

  • MSPI EXMIF support.

Added the following features as experimental:

• Bluetooth®:

  • Parallel scanning and initiating connection. It reduces the overall waiting time when there are several Bluetooth devices to be discovered and connected at the same time.

Improved:

• BICR handling and generation.

• Power management features across various subsystems.

Fixed:

• NCSDK-30802: An issue where the nRF54H20 device suddenly stopped transmitting ESB packets after nrfx 3.9.0.

• NCSDK-30161: An assertion during boot time caused by a combination of CONFIG_ASSERT, CONFIG_SOC_NRF54H20_GPD, and external flash.

• NCSDK-30117: An issue where a MEM component could be declared pointing to a memory region not assigned to a specific core.

• NCSDK-29682: Added support for the cose-alg-sha-512 algorithm in the SUIT module.

Limitations

On the nRF54H20 SoC, the Device Firmware Update (DFU) procedure from external flash memory does not work with the new flash memory driver based on the MSPI EXMIF handling. You must use the spi_dw.c driver in such case.

Release tag

The release tag for the nRF Connect SDK manifest repository (https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf) is v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1. Check the west.yml file for the corresponding tags in the project repositories.

To use this release, check out the tag in the manifest repository and run west update. See Install the nRF Connect SDK code and toolchain and Updating the repositories for more information.

For information on the included repositories and revisions, see Repositories and revisions for v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1.

Integration test results

The integration test results for this tag can be found in the following external locations:

• Twister test report for nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1

• Hardware test report for nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1

IDE and tool support

nRF Connect extension for Visual Studio Code is the recommended IDE for nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1. See the Installation section for more information about supported operating systems and toolchain.

Known issues

Known issues are only tracked for the latest official release. See known issues for nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1 for the list of issues valid for the latest release.

Migration notes

See the Migration guide for nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1 for the changes required or recommended when migrating your nRF54H Series application from nRF Connect SDK v2.8.0 to nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1.

Changelog

The following sections provide detailed lists of changes by component.

IDE, OS, and tool support

• Updated the deprecation notes for nRF Command Line Tools added in the previous release. The notes now clearly state the tools will be archived, no updates will be made to the software, but it will still be available for download.

Board support

• Updated various tests and samples to use Zephyr’s native simulator instead of Zephyr’s native POSIX for Running unit tests. This mirrors the deprecation of native_posix in Zephyr. Support for native_posix will be removed in Zephyr with the v4.2 release. In the nRF Connect SDK, it will be removed once Zephyr v4.2 is upmerged to sdk-nrf.

Build and configuration system

• Fixed the issue in the nordic-bt-rpc snippet, where an invalid memory map was created for nRF54H20 devices, which resulted in a runtime failure.

Security

• Extended the west ncs-provision command so that different key lifetime policies can be selected.

Protocols

This section provides detailed lists of changes by protocol. See Samples for lists of changes for the protocol-related samples.

Bluetooth LE

• Added support for scanning and initiating at the same time. This was introduced in nRF Connect SDK 2.7.0 as experimental. The Bluetooth: Scanning while connecting sample showcases how you can use this feature to reduce the time to establish connections to many devices.

• Updated the Bluetooth LE SoftDevice Controller driver to make the hci_vs_sdc_llpm_mode_set() function return an error if Low Latency Packet Mode (LLPM) is not supported or not enabled in the Bluetooth LE Controller driver configuration (CONFIG_BT_CTLR_SDC_LLPM).

• Fixed an issue where Bluetooth applications built with the nordic-ble-rpc snippet (in the Bluetooth Low Energy Remote Procedure Call configuration) did not work on the nRF54H20 devices due to incorrect memory mapping.

Matter

• Added:

  • Implementation of the Spake2pVerifier class for the PSA crypto backend. You can use this class to generate the Spake2+ verifier at runtime. To use this class, enable the Kconfig options CONFIG_PSA_WANT_ALG_PBKDF2_HMAC and CONFIG_PSA_WANT_KEY_TYPE_SPAKE2P_KEY_PAIR_DERIVE.

  • The Matter watchdog pause mode to the Matter watchdog feature.

Enhanced ShockBurst (ESB)

• Added support for loading radio trims.

• Fixed:

  • An hardware erratum for the nRF54H20 SoC to improve RF performance.

  • An issue where the nRF54H20 device suddenly stopped transmitting ESB packets after nrfx 3.9.0.

Matter fork

The Matter fork in the nRF Connect SDK (sdk-connectedhomeip) contains all commits from the upstream Matter repository up to, and including, the v1.4.0.0 tag.

The following list summarizes the most important changes inherited from the upstream Matter:

• Added:

  • Enhanced Network Infrastructure with Home Routers and Access Points (HRAP). This provides requirements for devices such as home routers, modems, or access points to create a necessary infrastructure for Matter products.

  • Enhanced multi-admin that aims to simplify the smart home management from the user perspective. This term includes several different features and in this release only Fabric Synchronization was fully delivered. The Fabric Synchronization enables commissioning of devices from one fabric to another without requiring manual user actions, only user consent.

  • Dynamic SIT LIT switching support that allows the application to switch between these modes, as long as the requirements for these modes are met. You can enable this using the CONFIG_CHIP_ICD_DSLS_SUPPORT Kconfig option.

  • The Kconfig option CONFIG_CHIP_ICD_SIT_SLOW_POLL_LIMIT to limit the slow polling interval value for the device while it is in the SIT mode. You can use this to limit the slow poll interval for the ICD LIT device while it is temporarily working in the SIT mode.

  • New device types:

    • Water heater

    • Solar power

    • Battery storage

    • Heat pump

    • Mounted on/off control

    • Mounted dimmable load control

• Updated:

  • Thermostat cluster with support for scheduling and preset modes, like vacation, and home or away settings.

  • Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) with support for user-defined charging preferences, like specifying the time when the car will be charged.

  • Occupancy sensing cluster with features like radar, vision, and ambient sensing.

  • Intermittently Connected Devices feature with enhancements for the Long Idle Time (LIT) and Check-In protocol. With these enhancements, the state of this feature is changed from provisional to certifiable.

Thread

• Added Kconfig options for configuring the MLE child update timeout, child supervision interval, and child supervision check timeout.

Zigbee

• Updated:

  • ZBOSS Zigbee stack to v3.11.6.0 and platform v5.1.7 (v3.11.6.0+5.1.7). They contain several fixes related to malfunctioning in a heavy traffic environment and more. For details, see the ZBOSS changelog.

  • The ZBOSS Network Co-processor Host package to the new version v2.2.5.

Applications

This section provides detailed lists of changes by application.

Machine learning

• Updated the application to enable the Zephyr Memory Storage (ZMS) file system for the nRF54H20 DK board.

IPC radio firmware

• Updated the application to enable the Zephyr Memory Storage (ZMS) file system in all devices that contain MRAM, such as the nRF54H Series devices.

Matter bridge

• Added:

  • Support for the UniqueID attribute in the Bridged Device Basic Information cluster.

  • Version 2 of the bridged device data scheme containing UniqueID.

  • Kconfig options CONFIG_BRIDGE_MIGRATE_PRE_2_7_0 and CONFIG_BRIDGE_MIGRATE_VERSION_1 to enable migration from older data schemes.

nRF Desktop

• Updated:

  • The Settings loader module to make the Zephyr Memory Storage (ZMS) the default settings backend for all board targets that use the MRAM technology. As a result, all nRF54H20 DK configurations were migrated from the NVS settings backend to the ZMS settings backend.

  • Watchdog module by adding the nRF54H20 DK release configuration.

  • The configuration files of the Click detector module (click_detector_def.h) to allow them to be used even when Bluetooth LE peer control using a dedicated button (CONFIG_DESKTOP_BLE_PEER_CONTROL) is disabled.

  • The DTS description for board targets with a different DTS overlay file for each build type to isolate the common configuration that is now defined in the app_common.dtsi file. The nRF54H20 DK board configuration has been updated.

  • The Failsafe module to use the Zephyr Hardware Information driver for getting and clearing the reset reason information (see the hwinfo_get_reset_cause() and hwinfo_clear_reset_cause() functions). The Zephyr Hardware Information driver replaces the dependency on the nrfx reset reason helper (see the nrfx_reset_reason_get() and nrfx_reset_reason_clear() functions).

  • The release configuration for the nRF54H20 DK board target to enable the Failsafe module (see the CONFIG_DESKTOP_FAILSAFE_ENABLE Kconfig option).

Samples

This section provides detailed lists of changes by sample.

Bluetooth samples

• Added:

  • The Bluetooth: Channel Sounding Reflector with Ranging Responder sample demonstrating how to implement a Channel Sounding Reflector that exposes the Ranging Responder GATT Service.

  • The Bluetooth: Channel Sounding Initiator with Ranging Requestor sample demonstrating Channel Sounding by setting up a Channel Sounding Initiator that acts as a Ranging Requestor GATT Client. It includes a basic distance estimation to demonstrate IQ data handling. The accuracy is not representative for Channel Sounding and should be replaced if accuracy is important.

  • The Bluetooth: Peripheral with multiple identities sample demonstrating how to use a single physical device to create and manage multiple advertisers, making it appear as multiple distinct devices by assigning each a unique identity.

  • The Bluetooth: Scanning while connecting sample demonstrating how to establish multiple connections faster using the CONFIG_BT_SCAN_AND_INITIATE_IN_PARALLEL Kconfig option.

  • Bluetooth: Direct Test Mode:

    • Added support for loading radio trims.

    • Fixed a hardware erratum for the nRF54H20 SoC to improve RF performance.

• Updated:

  • Configurations of the following Bluetooth samples to make the Zephyr Memory Storage (ZMS) the default settings backend for all board targets that use the MRAM technology:

    • Bluetooth: Central HIDS

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral HIDS keyboard

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral HIDS mouse

    • Bluetooth: Central and Peripheral HRS

    • Bluetooth: Central BAS

    • Bluetooth: Central NFC pairing

    • Bluetooth: Central UART

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral Bond Management Service (BMS)

    • Bluetooth: Continuous Glucose Monitoring Service (CGMS)

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral CTS client

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral LBS

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral Memfault Diagnostic Service (MDS)

    • Bluetooth: NFC pairing

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral power profiling

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral Running Speed and Cadence Service (RSCS)

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral Status

    • Bluetooth: Peripheral UART

    • Bluetooth: Host for nRF RPC Bluetooth Low Energy

    As a result, all nRF54H20 DK configurations of the affected samples were migrated from the NVS settings backend to the ZMS settings backend.

  • Testing steps in the Bluetooth: Peripheral HIDS mouse to provide the build configuration that is compatible with the Bluetooth Low Energy app testing tool.

• Bluetooth: Peripheral power profiling sample:

  • Added support for the nRF54H20 DK board target.

• nRF Auraconfig sample:

  • Fixed an issue with data transmission (OCT-3251). Data is now sent on all BISes when generated by the application (no SD card inserted).

Peripheral samples

• Radio test (short-range):

  • Added support for loading radio trims.

  • Fixed a hardware erratum for the nRF54H20 SoC to improve RF performance.

Bluetooth Fast Pair samples

• Bluetooth Fast Pair: Input device sample:

  • Added support for the nRF54H20 DK board target.

• Bluetooth Fast Pair: Locator tag sample:

  • Added support for the nRF54H20 DK board target.

Edge Impulse samples

• Added support for the nRF54H20 DK board target in the following samples:

  • Edge Impulse: Data forwarder

  • Edge Impulse: Wrapper

Matter samples

• Updated:

  • All Matter samples that support low-power mode to enable the RAM power-down feature. It is enabled by default for the release configuration of the following samples:

    • Matter: Door lock

    • Matter: Light switch

    • Matter: Smoke CO Alarm

    • Matter: Window covering

  • All Matter samples to enable the ZMS file subsystem in all devices that contain MRAM, such as the nRF54H Series devices.

• Disabled pausing Matter watchdog while CPU is in idle state in all Matter samples. To enable it, set the CONFIG_NCS_SAMPLE_MATTER_WATCHDOG_PAUSE_IN_SLEEP Kconfig option to y.

• Matter: Smoke CO Alarm sample:

  • Added support for ICD dynamic SIT LIT switching (DSLS).

SUIT samples

• Updated the suit_recovery by adding support for triggering firmware recovery by pressing a hardware button or calling a dedicated API. For more information, see ug_nrf54h20_suit_recovery.

Other samples

• CoreMark sample:

  • Updated:

    • Configuration for the nRF54H20 DK board to support multi-domain logging using the ARM Coresight STM.

    • The logging format in the standard logging mode to align it with the format used in the multi-domain logging mode.

    • Support for alternative configurations to use the file suffix feature from Zephyr. The following file suffixes are supported as alternative configurations:

      • flash_and_run

      • heap_memory

      • static_memory

      • multiple_threads

Libraries

This section provides detailed lists of changes by library.

Bluetooth libraries and services

• Added the Ranging Requestor (RREQ) and Ranging Responder (RRSP) libraries.

• GATT Human Interface Device Service (HIDS) Client library:

  • Updated the bt_hogp_rep_read() function to forward the GATT read error code through the registered user callback. This ensures that API user is aware of the error.

• Google Fast Pair Service (GFPS) library:

  • Added support in the build system for devices that do not support the Partition Manager. The nRF54H20 DK board target is the only example of such a device.

  • Updated the bt_fast_pair_info_cb_register() API to allow registration of multiple callbacks.

nRF RPC libraries

• Added the nRF RPC utility commands library for obtaining information about a device connected through the Remote procedure call library (nRF RPC).

sdk-nrfxlib

See the changelog for each library in the nrfxlib documentation for additional information.

Integrations

This section provides detailed lists of changes by integration.

Google Fast Pair integration

• Added instructions on how to provision the Fast Pair data onto devices without the Partition Manager support, specifically for the nRF54H20 DK.

Zephyr

The Zephyr fork in nRF Connect SDK (sdk-zephyr) contains all commits from the upstream Zephyr repository up to and including beb733919d8d64a778a11bd5e7d5cbe5ae27b8ee, with some nRF Connect SDK specific additions.

For the list of upstream Zephyr commits (not including cherry-picked commits) incorporated into nRF Connect SDK since the most recent release, run the following command from the ncs/zephyr repository (after running west update):

git log --oneline beb733919d ^ea02b93eea

For the list of nRF Connect SDK specific commits, including commits cherry-picked from upstream, run:

git log --oneline manifest-rev ^beb733919d

The current nRF Connect SDK main branch is based on revision beb733919d of Zephyr.

Note

For possible breaking changes and changes between the latest Zephyr release and the current Zephyr version, refer to the Zephyr release notes.

ZMS backend

• Added the support for a new ZMS backend for Settings in nRF Connect SDK:

  • The following Kconfig options for the ZMS backend for Settings are not available in the nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1:

    • CONFIG_SETTINGS_ZMS_NAME_CACHE

    • CONFIG_SETTINGS_ZMS_NAME_CACHE_SIZE

    • CONFIG_ZMS_LOOKUP_CACHE_FOR_SETTINGS

  • The ZMS settings backend now defaults to using the entire available storage partition. See Migration notes for nRF Connect SDK v2.9.0-nRF54H20-1.

Documentation

• Added:

  • The Shared configurations in Matter samples page that documents Kconfig options and snippets shared by Matter samples and applications.

  • A page about Adding new drivers.

  • A page for the High-Performance Framework GPIO application.

  • The Provisioning keys on the nRF54H20 SoC page.

• Updated:

  • The Getting started with the nRF54H20 DK page.

  • The Configuring your application for a custom PCB page.

  • The IronSide SE ABI compatibility page.

  • The Enabling Zephyr Memory Storage page to document its use on the nRF54H20 SoC.

  • The structure and contents of the Driving a GPIO pin directly page with more detailed information.

• Fixed an issue on the Installing the nRF Connect SDK page where an incorrect directory path was provided for Linux and macOS at the end of the Install the nRF Connect SDK code and toolchain section.