Nordic Semiconductor has introduced the ‘Power Profiler Kit’, a development tool comprising PC-based software and an extension board for the company’s nRF51 and nRF52 series development kits. Targeting software and hardware engineers designing embedded solutions, the low-cost kit provides a simple method to measure dynamic power consumption in embedded solutions.
A simple ampere meter is insufficient for obtaining a comprehensive overview of the power consumption of embedded devices when such devices continuously change between low-power and active modes. In addition, precise power consumption measurement becomes even more difficult as duty cycle decreases. In some Bluetooth low energy applications power mode changes are frequent and the duty cycle may be less than 1%, making the use of standard power measurement tools impractical.
The power profiler kit overcomes these challenges and is designed to be used for the entire wireless product development cycle – from proof of concept to final product completion. Its low cost allows every engineer working on a project to have their own unit, something that’s not practical with a lab-grade power profiling tool. The PC-based tool also makes it easy to detect flawed or non-optimised software because it clearly indicates unusually high power consumption, for example from active modules that the software should have disabled.
During the initial phase of product design, the kit can be employed to measure the power consumption of the nRF51 or nRF52 Bluetooth low energy system-on-chip (SoC) while the prototype product is developed on the associated development kits. For later stages it is possible to measure the power consumption for the entire design on the final PCB. Continuous power consumption measurement at all stages of software development ensures power problems are identified early in the engineering cycle, making it easier to avoid time consuming revisions of code at a later stage.
The kit includes an advanced auto-ranging analog measurement circuit to support high-speed current measurement across a large dynamic input range. It supports an input range from 0 to 70 mA, with a resolution of just 0,2 μA for the lowest range. Sampling is performed every 13 µs in order to ensure even the shortest periods of activity are captured.
The PC-based supporting software provides several ways of assessing the power consumption, both instantaneous and averaged over a set time period. The user can set up the kit to take readings over a period of up to 20 seconds, while simultaneously zooming in on a millisecond interval of interest. Over both these time periods the user can select points for instantaneous measurement as well as areas over which to average. Measured data can also be exported for post-processing.
The software is based on the Python programming language and is delivered via an installer that includes all the required scripts. The use of Python enables non-expert programmers to easily modify and customise software. The software output can generate logs that can be processed directly by other tools.
For more information contact Andrew Hutton, RF Design, +27 (0)21 555 8400, [email protected], www.rfdesign.co.za
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