SoCs bring Bluetooth design flexibility

17th May 2016

Mick Elliott

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Datasheet

The nRF52 Series systems-on-chips (SoCs) from Nordic Semiconductor is now being shipped by Mouser Electronics. These next-generation ultra-low-power radio frequency (RF) wireless solutions combine high performance and power efficiency, feature a unique on-chip NFC tag, and offer high levels of Bluetooth Smart design flexibility for a variety of applications, including Internet of Things (IoT), wearables, wireless charging, beacons, sports and fitness sensors, remote-controlled toys, and building automation.

The SoCs feature a 64MHz ARM Cortex-M4F processor with 512kBytes of flash memory and 64kBytes of RAM, plus on-chip analogue and digital peripherals. The SoCs also include a multiprotocol Bluetooth Smart, ANT, and proprietary 2.4GHz radio with -96dB RX sensitivity, 5.5mA peak RX/TX currents, and an on-chip RF balun.

The nRF52 devices’ fully automatic power management system reduces power consumption by up to 80 percent compared with the nRF51 Series.

However, the nRF51 and nRF52 Series share a common software architecture (which separates the Bluetooth Smart RF software and customer application code), allowing designers to easily reuse proven legacy software.

For cost-effective Bluetooth Smart modules with integrated high-performance antennas, Mouser also stocks the new EYSHCNZXZ Bluetooth Smart module from Taiyo Yuden, which features Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC. The module is a fully tested Bluetooth Smart solution compatible with the latest version of the Bluetooth Core Specification (v4.2), which can simplify the design of a wide range of connected products where performance, small size, and low power consumption are key factors.

It offers a high-performance ceramic chip antenna, 30 general-purpose input/outputs (GPIOs), as well as SPI, UART, I²C, I²S, PDM, and 12-bit analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) interfaces together with analog inputs.

The module’s output power is adjustable up to +4dBm, and its compact 9.6 × 12.9 × 2mm form factor makes it suitable for a variety of small, thin devices, including healthcare equipment, wearable devices, and smartphone peripherals.