Dual-Core SoC Targets Low-Power Bluetooth Applications
What you'll learn:
- What’s inside the nRF54LM20A?
- Wireless standards supported by the nRF54LM20A, including Matter.
The nRF54LM20A developed by Nordic Semiconductor is a dual-core, Bluetooth system-on-chip (SoC) designed for low-power, wireless operation. I recently spoke with Michael Sly, Field Application Engineer (watch the video above), about the new chip that includes both an Arm Cortex-M33 and RISC-V core (Fig. 1). The SoC features multiprotocol 2.4-GHz and Bluetooth support, as well as 802.15.4-2020 plus a proprietary 2 mode that runs at speeds up to 4 Mb/s.
The system employs a 128-MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex-M33 and a 128-MHz, 32-bit RISC-V core. It’s available with 2 MB of non-volatile memory and 512 kB of RAM. It also supports high-speed USB, seven different serial interfaces including SPI and I2C, along with timers, PWM, NFC, and more. On top of that, there’s a 14-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC).
Security is built around Arm TrustZone. The chip includes tamper detection and a cryptographic engine with side-channel leakage protection. Also in the mix is a 128-bit AES/ECB/CCM/AAR co-processor.
The Bluetooth LE supports optional features like Bluetooth mesh, Channel Sounding, and Auracast. Channel Sounding provides distance information while Auracast is a broadcast audio solution. The 802.15.4 support handles protocols like Thread, Matter, and Zigbee. The nRF54L series can also run Wi-Fi with the addition of an nRF70 Series companion IC.
The demo uses Nordic Semiconductor’s Power Profiler Kit II to show the low-power operation of the nRF54LM20A (Fig. 2). The Power Profiler provides power up to 1 A while recording how much is required for an application. It delivers power with VCC levels from 0.8 to 5 V DC via an on-board regulator.
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William G. Wong
Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.
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