According to Nordic Semiconductor, the company has “redefined single-chip Bluetooth Smart” with its nRF52 Series device. This achievement is made possible by combining high performance and power efficiency with on-chip NFC technology. Sampling now, the nRF52832 is the first in the SoC series. It features a 64-MHz ARM Cortex-M4F processor, a 2.4 GHz multi-protocol radio, and dynamic power optimization. The IC also contains 512 KB of flash memory and 64 KB of RAM.

Built on a 55 nm process, the nRF52832 includes 6 mm x 6 mm QFN and miniature 3.0 mm x 3.2 mm CSP packaging options. With an EEMBC 215 CoreMark score, the nRF52832 delivers up to 60 percent more generic processing power compared to competing ARM Cortex-M0/M3 based Bluetooth Smart SoC solutions, says the company. And thanks to its on-chip ARM Cortex-M4F, an additional 10X Floating Point and 2X DSP performance can be attained. For power, the part achieves 90 CoreMark/mA.

The nRF52832 also includes a host of on-chip analog and digital peripherals for glueless interfacing to external components such as sensors, displays, touch controllers, LEDs, keypads, motors, digital microphones, and audio codecs. This makes it suitable for wearables, toys, smart home devices and appliances, and wireless charging. Development kits, software, and documentation are available today. Volume production is scheduled for December.