Same Firmware, Different Current Consumption Between Devices

RE: Same Firmware, Different Current Consumption Between Devices

Naeem Maroof — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:59:38 GMT

Hello,

Is there any update at your end?

[quote user="TommyKirscher"]so the misc hardware on the board can be ruled out.[/quote]

Good that you are eliminating other factors; but I would like to ask how you are measuring only 9160 power? Maybe you can explain a bit about your setup.

I think you can repeat the experiments with different versions of init function (nocode, only gpiote, only timer, and all code gpiote+timer+dppi) and then also on different h/w versions.

I am unaware of any resource documenting the power variability for the DPPI peripheral.

RE: Same Firmware, Different Current Consumption Between Devices

TommyKirscher — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:06:08 GMT

Hi Naeem,

Pin 24 is being used on all boards, and all boards have the same hardware. I realized that I never mentioned that the current draw going solely to the 9160 had shown this variance, so the misc hardware on the board can be ruled out.

We've recently tested the latest firmware on 3 separate boards which report 13 uA, 20 uA and 45 uA. We're waiting to receive more so we can get a better idea how much variance we have between boards. All are running the same firmware.

Our troubleshooting process involved fully erasing the chip using the nRF programmer app. This did not have any impact on current draw.

I'll check the registers of the pins and get back to you with what I find. One detail I would like to emphasize, however, is that if we run the code that initializes the counter peripheral but comment out the GPIOTE peripheral, we still see the same current draw.

Thank you

RE: Same Firmware, Different Current Consumption Between Devices

Naeem Maroof — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 09:15:00 GMT

Hello,

Which pin(s) you are using for GPIOTE configuration? Sometimes, there can be a different configuration stored in some registers that might impact how we have configured and how we are using.

As you talked about "different devices", are they the custom boards? I hope even in that case the hardware components, SOC versions, and everything on-board is same.

How many boards you have in total? Is it like board-1 and board-2 showing different behaviour for the same firmware, or is it that you have many boards and a set of boards are behaving normally and the rest otherwise?

As I assume the hardware and the firmware both are the same, may I ask if you could eraseall / recover your boards before flashing.

You may also check the registers of the pins used to see if there are any differences.

/BR, Naeem