Nordic Semiconductor announced that an enhanced revision of its nRF8001 Bluetooth 4.0 low energy connectivity IC will further extend the current device’s power-saving performance and benefit from an upgraded Bluetooth core software stack.
The revision – called the nRF8001 ‘build D’ – is fully drop-in compatible (hardware and software) with the current Nordic nRF8001 (build C) ensuring a smooth migration path for existing customers. The new power saving features and enhanced Bluetooth stack are easily accessible through an expanded ACI (application controller interface) command set that can be used by extending existing application code.
The nRF8001 build D includes all Bluetooth core stack features required for the newly adopted Bluetooth low energy human interface device (HID) profile. This makes it well suited for emerging Bluetooth low energy wireless PC peripherals and advanced navigational remotes for connected TV and set-top boxes (STB).
With its on-chip ±250 ppm 32 kHz crystal oscillator, the nRF8001 enables power-constrained applications to be implemented without an external 32 kHz crystal. This represents a bill-of-material (BoM) and board space reduction compared to competing solutions that require an external crystal. However, for the old build C version, there was a potential power consumption penalty of running on the internal oscillator versus a more accurate (typically ±20 ppm) external crystal for connection intervals of longer than about 1 second.
The new dynamic window limiting feature in build D mitigates this penalty – running on the ±250 ppm 32 kHz RC oscillator will consume similar amounts of power to running on an external ±20 ppm crystal over the entire connection interval range. Crucially, dynamic window limiting does not depend on any special features in the peer device, meaning it will offer the same performance benefits when communicating with any manufacturer’s Bluetooth v4.0 IC.
Application latency is a new feature that reduces latency for data from the central to the peripheral device in a connection using slave latency. The reduced latency means that developers can take advantage of higher slave latency while at the same time meeting all required data latency requirements, yet achieve power savings of up to 30%.
As with dynamic window limiting, application latency does not depend on any special features in the peer device, meaning it will offer the same performance benefits when communicating with any manufacturer’s Bluetooth v4.0 IC.
The Bluetooth core stack enhancements in the nRF8001 build D include: support for authenticated pairing while in bonding mode; application initiation of security request while in bonding mode; broadcast of data, plus direct advertising.
For more information contact Andrew Hutton, RF Design, +27 (0)21 555 8400, sales@rfdesign.co.za, www.rfdesign.co.za
| Tel: | +27 21 555 8400 |
| Email: | sales@rfdesign.co.za |
| www: | www.rfdesign.co.za |
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