FIELD APPLICATION ENGINEER
In this issue, we will briefly touch on Bluetooth technology and its development process. Also, we will talk about the steps Ozdisan Elektronik has taken to serve its customers who “use” or “want to use” Bluetooth in their projects. Even when Ericsson introduced Bluetooth, a short-distance communication technology, in 1994, it did not think that this technology could reach these levels. When we say “Bluetooth”, we always think of an inefficient technology that could communicate over short distances and connect to only one device. However, we see that many terms such as Bluetooth 4.0 / 5.0 / 5.1 / A, BLE / Mesh have appeared recently. At this latest point, and contrary to what is known, the transmitting range has also been greatly increased and now it can be connected to multiple devices using Bluetooth technology. Compared to this, the power it spends was reduced to a minimum. As a result, we are now seeing Bluetooth technology in places that require low power consumption, such as wearable technology, especially the Internet of Things. Therefore, the number of companies working in Bluetooth field and the number of companies producing Bluetooth modules has increased.
Each year, a different theme dominates the Embedded World embedded systems fair. Whatever the trend is, the products presented are always associated with that trend. As a result of the field researches and studies about the direction of technology we conducted before going to the Embedded World Fair this year, we saw that the technology and systems at the fair were progressing exactly in the same direction we had predicted. The entire concept of the fair was based on connecting objects or systems to the Internet in some way. As Ozdisan Elektronik, we signed a distributorship agreement with Norway-based Nordic Semiconductor, the world’s largest manufacturer of Bluetooth chips at this fair. The Nordic company, which manufactures chips that support Bluetooth communication, offers products to support multi-connected structures from short to long distances. In this case, customers who want to communicate data, establish a sensor network or make something monitorable from a smart phone can benefit from Nordic Semiconductor products nRF51, nRF52 or nRF91.
“The Nordic company, which manufactures chips that support Bluetooth communication,
offers products to support multi-connected structures from short to long distances.”
When it comes to battery-powered systems, power consumption is the most important parameter. One of the most important offerings of Nordic Semiconductor company is low power consumption. We are both surprised and excited to see that the power consumption can fall to 8-10uA levels when the entire system is active. Roughly, the CR2032 battery, which we call the “coin battery”, can give an average current of 220mA. When you feed a product from the nRF series with this battery and put it in the field, your system works for about 2.5 years. This also means that the continuous battery of plug-and-play products is not checked or a charging circuit is not added to each system. All smart wristbands and smart watches that provide communication via Bluetooth, including the recently very popular Xiaomi brand, have nRF5 series chips inside. This gives our customers an idea of how wide a range of these products can be used. Nordic Semiconductor’s existing structure can adapt to all kinds of projects by producing products in all combinations that its customers may need. The company divides its products into 3 groups as basic (baseline), general (mainstream) and state-of-the-art (high end). This categorization is based on the transmission range, additional supported hardware features, as well as the Flash/RAM support.
These are:
Nordic Semiconductor nRF52810
● BT4.2/5 support
● 192Kb internal flash / 24Kb Ram
● +4 dBm output power
● 2.4Ghz transceiver
Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832
● BT4.2/BT5/BT Mesh support
● AES & ANT& PDM
● 512Kb internal flash / 64Kb Ram
● +4 dBm output power
● 2.4Ghz transceiver
● NFC support
Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840
● BT4.2/BT5/BT Mesh support
● Thread & Zigbee & CryptoCell
● 1Mb internal flash / 256Kb Ram
● +8 dBm output power
● 2.4Ghz transceiver
● NFC support
● USB support
● Bluetooth Long Range support
“One of the most important offerings of Nordic Semiconductor company is low power consumption.”
Nordic has designed a demo-kit for each product family in order to facilitate and accelerate the testing and development phases of all the products it manufactures. Thus, customers who want to work with Bluetooth technology or develop projects can develop their codes with the help of development kits before designing their own PCBs. Nordic Semiconductor is able to provide fast support throughout the world with its in-house R&D and Field Application teams. The company has a wide ecosystem with the forum they have established on “https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/”. When customers who desire to operate in the field of Bluetooth want to create an application related to the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52 series, they can start the process locally and quickly thanks to the field application team at Ozdisan Elektronik. Ozdisan Elektronik, with the distributorship agreement it has signed with Nordic, has added the company’s entire product range and development kits to its existing inventory. So, all our customers who are interested in this subject can easily buy these products from us and try them by themselves.
