Nordic Launches Wi-Fi 6 Companion IC and Dev Kit

　　Nordic Semiconductor has launched the nRF7002 Wi-Fi 6 companion IC and its associated nRF7002 Development Kit (DK). The nRF7002 is the first in Nordic’s Wi-Fi product family and is a low power Wi-Fi 6 companion IC providing seamless dual band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) connectivity. It can be used together with Nordic’s nRF52 and nRF53 Series multiprotocol Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) and the nRF9160 cellular IoT (LTE-M/NB-IoT) System-in-Package (SiP), but can equally be used in conjunction with non-Nordic host devices. The DK makes it easy for developers to get started on nRF7002-based IoT projects.

　　Wi-Fi 6 brings significant benefits to IoT applications—such as smart-home products, industrial sensors, asset trackers, and wearables—including power efficiency gains for battery powered Wi-Fi operation, and management of large IoT networks comprising hundreds of devices.

　　“The nRF7002 Wi-Fi 6 companion IC is a testament to Nordic Semiconductor’s leadership in low-power wireless technology,” said Svein-Egil Nielsen, CTO/EVP of R&D and Strategy at Nordic. “This highly integrated and flexible solution will empower developers to create new, innovative Wi-Fi 6-enabled products. Supported with the nRF7002 DK and the award-winning nRF Connect SDK, combined with Nordic’s best in class technical support, I believe it has never been easier to develop great Wi-Fi products.”

　　“The nRF7002 is designed to work alongside Nordic’s nRF52 and nRF53 Series making it a perfect fit for Matter, a smart-home standard backed by Amazon, Apple, Google, Nordic, Samsung, and hundreds of other companies,” said Finn Boetius, Product Marketing Engineer with Nordic. “The introduction of the IC and the nRF7002 DK now makes it easy for developers to get started on Matter and any other Wi-Fi based applications.” Matter uses Thread and Wi-Fi for data transport, and Bluetooth LE for commissioning.

　　The nRF7002 brings low power and secure Wi-Fi to the IoT. The dual-band IC complies with Station (STA), Soft Access Point (AP), and Wi-Fi Direct operation, and meets the IEEE 802.11b, a, g, n (Wi-Fi 4), ac (Wi-Fi 5), and ax (Wi-Fi 6) Wi-Fi standards. The product also offers excellent coexistence with Bluetooth LE, Thread, and Zigbee. The nRF7002 supports Target Wake Time (TWT) a key Wi-Fi 6 power saving feature. Interfacing with a host processor is done via Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) or Quad SPI (QSPI). The IC offers a single spatial stream, 20 MHz channel bandwidth, 64 QAM (MCS7), OFDMA, up to 86 Mbps PHY throughput, and BSS coloring.

　　In addition to its suitability for general IoT applications and Matter, the nRF7002 is the ideal choice for implementing low power SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing when used together with Nordic’s nRF9160 SiP and the company’s nRF Cloud Location Services. SSID-based Wi-Fi locationing supplements GNSS- or cell-based locationing by providing accurate positioning indoors and in places with a high density of Wi-Fi access points.

　　The introduction of the nRF7002 is accompanied by the launch of the nRF7002 DK, a development kit for the Wi-Fi 6 companion IC. The DK includes an nRF7002 IC and features an nRF5340 multiprotocol SoC as a host processor for the nRF7002. The nRF5340 embeds a 128 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 application processor and a 64 MHz high efficiency network processor. The DK supports the development of low-power Wi-Fi applications and enables Wi-Fi 6 features like OFDMA, Beamforming, and TWT. The DK includes: Arduino connectors; two programmable buttons; a Wi-Fi dual-band antenna and a Bluetooth LE antenna, and current measurement pins.

　　Together with the DK, developing nRF7002-based designs is made simpler by the support for the IC in the nRF Connect SDK, Nordic’s scalable and unified software development kit for building products based on the company’s wireless devices. With the nRF7002 IC, nRF7002 DK, and nRF Connect SDK, developers can quickly and easily add Wi-Fi connectivity to their products, allowing them to connect to the Internet and communicate with other devices over a Wi-Fi network. Example applications for the nRF7002 DK are included with nRF Connect SDK.