NXP adds NFC peripheral to Bluetooth microcontroller
NXP Semiconductors’ QN9090 and QN9030 Bluetooth 5 SoC are now available with hardware compatible options for 802.15.4, multi-protocol RF and optional NFC technology. The QN series of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices have low power consumption for battery operated applications, with 4.3mA Rx current and 7.3mA Tx current at +0dBm. They integrate a high-capacity CPU with a wide operating temperature range and BLE mesh support. There is a mix of analogue and digital peripherals including low power modes, digital MIC interface with wake up on audio event and quad SPI NOR flash memory controller for high density data or code storage.
The QN9090 and QN9030 devices are powered by an Arm Cortex-M4 running at 48MHz and include up to 640kbyte on-board flash and 152kbyte SRAM, providing storage space and flexibility for complex applications and safe over the air (OTA) updates. The operating range is -40 to +125 degrees C.
The QN Series devices help accelerate development and time-to-market for developers creating products with rich features for diverse IoT applications such as personal healthcare devices, sports and fitness trackers, connected appliances, building and home automation, toys and gaming peripherals, as well as beacons and mesh networks.
NXP’s BLE SoC with NFC integrated on chip, the QN9090T and QN9030T variants support out-of-band wireless communications. Tapping an IoT device based on the QN9090T to a smartphone, tablet or other NFC reader device, a BLE connection can be quickly established, says the company, which simplifies the pairing process. The built-in NFC NTAG eliminates the need for the tag to be powered and creates additional opportunities for diagnostics or device commissioning in stages of the device life cycle.
To help speed time-to-market, NXP also offer the MCUXpresso software development kit for QN, which is compatible with the latest toolchains from IAR and NXP’s MCUXpresso integrated development environment (IDE). The full MCUXpresso suite of software and tools provides a seamless software experience across NXP devices, says the company, as well as a fast path to add Bluetooth LE capability to an existing design on other NXP devices.
The NXP IoT Toolbox smart device application is available, along with the NXP Connectivity Tool and Test Tool to help developers’ evaluate RF performance and test more efficiently.
The QN9090 and QN9030 devices are available now from NXP and its distribution partners.
