RE: Large variability in power consumption of nRF5340 GPIOTE in event mode

abxy — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 14:12:45 GMT

Thank you. That's just what I needed to know.

RE: Large variability in power consumption of nRF5340 GPIOTE in event mode

Einar Thorsrud — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 10:53:45 GMT

Hi,

There is a high variation on the GPIOTE current consmption from device to device, and these numbers are within what we would expect.

RE: Large variability in power consumption of nRF5340 GPIOTE in event mode

abxy — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 08:41:31 GMT

I performed some additional experiments and measurements this morning. All current measurements are done on the 1.8V net that feeds VDD of the nRF5340. Here are the results (current in uA):

Board	Interrupt/DCDC	Interrupt/LDO	Interrupt/LowPower	Power-off	Idle	CONSTLAT
A	82	250	3.7	0.96	3.7	2594
B	196	564	5.9	1.17	5.9	2946

Explanation of the different scenarios:

Interrupt/DCDC - Same application as in my original question, but a new measurement performed this morning.
Interrupt/LDO - Same as original question with the addition of CONFIG_BOARD_ENABLE_DCDC_APP=n
Interrupt/LowPower - Same as original question with the addition of calling nrfx_gpiote_latency_set(NRF_GPIOTE_LATENCY_LOWPOWER); before configuring the GPIO pin.
Power-off: Just calling sys_poweroff(); in main()
Idle: Empty main()
CONSTLAT: Just calling nrf_power_task_trigger(NRF_POWER, NRF_POWER_TASK_CONSTLAT); in main()

Across the board we can see that sample B consumes more power than sample A. The absolute and relative differences vary depending on what scenario is tested. I believe this shows quite conclusively that the variability is intrinsic to the MCUs and not something caused by another component on the board, with the possible exception of some supporting component to the MCU e.g. the crystals.