Low-cost 2,4 GHz RF transceivers
28 October 2009
Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT
Nordic Semiconductor has released a pair of low-cost one time programmable (OTP) variants of its nRF24LE1 and nRF24LU1+ 2,4 GHz ULP (ultra-low power) wireless system-on-chip (SoC) solutions: the nRF24LE1 OTP and nRF24LU1+ OTP.
Based on the same technology platform as the nRF24LE1 and nRF24LU1+ Flash products, the new OTPs still feature Nordic’s high-performance ULP nRF24L01+ transceiver core, enhanced 8051 microcontroller (MCU), low-power oscillators, hardware AES security, and a wide range of application peripherals and interfaces. Both devices integrate 16 KB of program OTP and 1 KB of data OTP. With a fully integrated charge pump, the OTP is writable from the chip’s MCU, enabling the data OTP to be used for emulating non-volatile memory when required (eg, to retain pairing information during a battery change).
The nRF24LE1 OTP and nRF24LU1+ OTP inherit the ULP operating characteristics of their Flash-based counterparts, enabling extended operation from small capacity batteries such as AAA or coin cell types. For example, current consumption of the nRF24LE1+ OTP while transmitting is just 11,1 mA (at 0 dBm output power) and peak receive current is 13,3 mA (at 2 Mbps). Average current is in the microampere range (for a typical low duty cycle operation).
The nRF24LE1 OTP integrates a fully-featured nRF24L01+ 2,4 GHz transceiver core including Nordic’s proven Enhanced ShockBurst hardware link layer. A wide range of peripherals and power saving modes support the RF protocol stack. A ULP 32 kHz crystal oscillator provides highly accurate timing for low report rate synchronous protocols and a 16 MHz RC oscillator provides fast startup times from idle. The 32 kHz oscillator can provide timing accurate enough for higher report rate protocols without requiring an external crystal. A security co-processor supports AES encrypted wireless communication. For the application layer the nRF24LE1 OTP offers a rich set of interfaces and peripherals including an SPI, 2-wire, UART, 12-bit ADC, PWM and an analog comparator.
The nRF24LU1+ OTP integrates an nRF24L01+ 2,4 GHz transceiver core, also including Nordic’s proven Enhanced ShockBurst hardware link layer. By integrating a Full-Speed USB 2.0 compliant device controller with an 8-bit microcontroller and an AES encryption engine, the device provides a single-chip USB dongle solution. This includes an integrated voltage regulator that allows the chip to be powered directly from a USB bus, removing the requirement for an external voltage regulator. The only external components the nRF24LU1+ OTP chip requires are a low-cost 16 MHz crystal, decoupling, matching network and antenna.
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