nRF52832, nRF5340 current consumption comparison

[John Lee]

It is an extension of the ticket below.
devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../nrf5340-current-consumption-issues
I'd like to find out what causes the huge difference in current consumption on the two boards.

An online power profiler (OPP) was used to estimate the radio current, and PPK2 was used to measure the actual current consumption of the board.

<52832>




OPP: 77uA
Measurements: 72.23 uA
Measurement_base: 3.04 uA

<5340>




OPP: 56uA
Measurements: 85.87 uA
Measurement_base: 6.76 uA

OPP simulations suggest that the 5340 will have lower current consumption, but measurements do not.
Comparing the currents over one connection interval clearly shows the difference. Both radio/idle the 5340 has high current consumption.

<52832>



Interval (60 ms): 70.28 uA
Peak (5 ms): 809.6 uA
Base (55 ms): 3.06 uA

<5340>



Interval: 78.53 uA
Peak: 870.45 uA
Base: 6.54 uA

I'd like to know where this difference comes from.
Is it simply because the 5340 has two cores?
52832, IDDFLASHCACHEDCDC: 3.7 mA
5340, IAPPCPU3 + INETCPU2: 3.6 mA + 2.6 mA = 6.2 mA

I tried to compare the current consumption of the two mcu peripherals in the datasheet, but the 5340 doesn't provide enough information. (gpiote, pof...)
I want to make sure I've achieved sufficient current optimization.

[Simonr]

Hi John

What exactly does the application in both of these projects do? It should be a similar or better current consumption on the nRF5340 and nRF52832 in sleep modes and when the radio is running, but if I.E. both the NET and APP core runs a peripheral it will likely draw more power than an nRF52832 only running one peripheral for example.

Is it possible with the 5340 to achieve the same level of power consumption as the 52832? Yes, that should be possible but that is assuming they run the same amount of peripherals and on the same SDK. Have you tried running a similar sample for the nRF52832 on the NCS? As it might also be the Zephyr RTOS overhead drawing a small extra overhead. 

Best regards,

Simon