Nordic nRF52820 Bluetooth 5.2 SoC Supports Thread, Zigbee and Full Speed USB 2.0

Nordic Semi has launched the sixth multi-protocol SoC part of their nRF52 family with nRF52820 Bluetooth 5.2 ultra low power System-on-Chip (SoC) supporting Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE), Bluetooth mesh, as well as Thread, Zigbee, and 2.4-GHz proprietary.

nRF52820 can handle all Bluetooth 5/5.1/5.2 versions with features such as Long Range, 2 Mbps throughput, direction finding, LE power control, and LE isochronous channels. The SoC also happens to include a Full Speed (12 Mbps) USB 2.0 interface.

nRF52820 key features and specifications:

MCU Core – Arm Cortex-M4 @ 64 MHz
Memory – 32 KB RAM
Storage – 256 KB Flash
Wireless Connectivity
- Bluetooth
  - 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps, Long Range
  - Bluetooth Low Energy
  - Bluetooth Direction Finding
  - Bluetooth mesh
- Thread, Zigbee
- 802.15.4/ANT/2.4 GHz proprietary
- Up to +8 dBm TX power
Security – 128-bit AES encryption
USB – Full Speed USB 2.0
Other Peripherals
- UART, 2x SPI/TWI, QDEC
- Analog comparator
- 4x 32-bit timer/counter, 2x 24 real-time counter, PPI, GPIOTE, temp sensor, WDT, RNG
Oscillators – 64 MHz from 32 MHz external crystal or internal 32 kHz from crystal, RC or synthesized
Supply Voltage – 1.7 to 5.5 V
Power Consumption at 3V
- 0.6 μA in System OFF
- 1.1 μA in System ON
- 2.6 μA in System ON with 32 KB RAM retained and RTC running
Package – 5×5 mm QFN40 with 18 GPIOs (pin-to-pin compatible with nRF52833 SoC)
Temperature Range – -40 to 105 °C

nRF52820 Block Diagram — Click to Enlarge

The nRF52820 is supported by the S112 and S140 SoftDevices (Bluetooth 5.1-qualified protocol stacks), and the S122 (alpha version) SoftDevice. S112 & S122 are memory-optimized peripheral and central stacks respectively, while S140 is a Bluetooth 5 protocol stack for central and peripheral with support for Long Range and high-throughput 2 Mbps features.

There’s no specific nRF52820 hardware development kit, but it can be emulated using nRF52833 Development Kit (DK). Nordic’s nRF5 SDK (Software Development Kit) v16.0.0 is already supported, and the full nRF5 SDK is expected in Q2 2020.

The nRF52820 SoC is expected to be found in HID, smart home, commercial, and industrial applications. Engineering samples are available now, but there was no mention of the mass production schedule in the press release. More details can be found on the product page.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.