Nordic Semiconductor named as 2015 CES Innovation Awards Honoree
Ultra low power (ULP) RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor ASA (OSE: NOD) today announces it has been named a 2015 CES Innovation Awards Honoree for the nRF51822 Bluetooth® Smart and 2.4GHz proprietary multiprotocol System-on-Chip (SoC) with S110 SoftDevice v7.0. Products chosen as CES Innovation Honorees reflect innovative design and engineering in some of the most cutting edge tech products and services coming to market.
Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, independent engineers, and members of the trade media to honor design and engineering in cutting edge consumer electronics products across 28 product categories. Entries are evaluated on their engineering, aesthetic and design qualities, intended use/function and user value, how the design and innovation of the product directly compares to other products in the marketplace, and unique/novel features present. Honorees are displayed at “CES Unveiled New York”, at the Metropolitan Pavilion, New York.
The nRF51822 SoC is a Bluetooth Smart (formerly called Bluetooth low energy) solution optimized for ULP wireless connectivity. The SoC integrates a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio, 32-bit ARM® Cortex™ M0 processor, up to 256kB flash memory, and up to 32kB random access memory (RAM). The nRF51822 SoC’s software architecture features a unique and powerful separation between the Bluetooth Smart protocol software (“stack”) and user application code for maximum flexibility and ease-of-development.
The S110 SoftDevice v7.0 is Nordic’s latest Bluetooth Smart stack for the nRF51822 SoC. (A SoftDevice is Nordic’s self-contained stack for nRF51 Series SoCs that incorporates an RF protocol and its associated management framework.) The S110 SoftDevice v7.0 brings a range of features including Over-The-Air Device Firmware Upgrade (OTA-DFU) and compliance with the latest version of Bluetooth wireless technology (Bluetooth v4.1) allowing end products using the S110 SoftDevice to be qualified to the Bluetooth standard.
The S110 SoftDevice v7.0 is able to handle concurrent multiprotocol Bluetooth low energy and 2.4GHz RF proprietary communication allowing consumer electronics companies to offer a proprietary version of their product, without requiring any re-design effort, depending on the target market.
When developing with the nRF51822, professional and amateur engineers alike can focus on developing their own application safe in the knowledge that the separation of application software from the Bluetooth Smart stack means that their own development work can’t corrupt the stack. This is not the case with competing technologies.
Bluetooth Smart allows compact wireless sensors and other accessories powered by tiny batteries to communicate seamlessly with the latest generation of smartphones and tablet computers from most of the major consumer electronics manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, and Sony. Commercial applications of the technology include beacons, fitness & health monitors, remote controls, toys, PC peripherals, and home automation.
The nRF51822 SoC, S110 SoftDevice v7.0, and nRF51 Series Development Kit (DK) make if much easier for professional engineers and keen amateurs (for example members of the “maker” community and hobbyists) with little or no radio frequency (RF) engineering expertise to add a Bluetooth Smart wireless link to their product. Such a link seamlessly communicates with the latest generation of smartphones and tablets allowing wireless products to leverage the computational power and apps on the mobile device, opening up thousands of new and innovative applications.
