Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

RE: Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

dejans — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 09:13:00 GMT

Hi,

I am glad to hear it worked for you. Thank you for the update.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

Sage_Duggal — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 15:02:19 GMT

Hi Dejan,

Amazing! Thank you very much for your support. I flashed your changes and received below 2 uA as measured by the PPKII.

It's quite interesting that the nRF9151 requires both NRF_REGULATORS->SYSTEMOFF = 1; as well as a sys_poweroff(); function call. I will investigate this in more detail over the weekend.

Thanks again!

RE: Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

dejans — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 13:23:08 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for providing detailed steps.
Following your steps I got the result for current consumption of 2.77 mA. If you want to see lower power consumption, you could try to make some changes to your main.c and configuration file prj.conf, Please find the changes below.
main.c

nrf_modem_lib_init();
lte_lc_power_off();
k_sleep(K_MSEC(1000));
NRF_REGULATORS->SYSTEMOFF = 1;
nrf_modem_lib_shutdown();
sys_poweroff();
return 0;

prj.conf

CONFIG_SERIAL=n
CONFIG_LOG=n
CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_NRF_MODEM_LIB=y
CONFIG_LTE_LINK_CONTROL=y
CONFIG_POWEROFF=y

With these changes I managed to get around 1.97 uA.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

Sage_Duggal — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 04:52:18 GMT

Hi Dejan,

Thanks for reaching out. Sure thing. I will share the most simple test case in an effort to make replication easier for you.

Setup:

nRF Connect: nRF Connect SDK and Toolchain v2.9.0
Hardware markings: nRF9151DK, PCA10171, 0.9.0, 2024.37

prj.conf

CONFIG_SERIAL=n
CONFIG_TFM_LOG_LEVEL_SILENCE=y

CONFIG_LTE_LINK_CONTROL=y

main.c (this was pulled directly from here)

#include <modem/lte_lc.h> void main(void) { lte_lc_power_off(); k_sleep(K_MSEC(1000)); NRF_REGULATORS->SYSTEMOFF = 1; }

Build commands:

I generated a pristine build from nRF Connect selecting the correct board (nRF9151dk/nrf9151/ns)
This successfully built a file with one warning below, but this should be ignorable.
- "warning: return type of 'main' is not 'int'
I flashed the merged.hex file to the board

Measurement steps:

USB C plugged into nRF9151DK with the power switch on the DK turned on.
Jumper removed from P22
VOUT from PPKII connected to VDD_nRF on P22
GND from PPKII connected to GND on P22
PPKII set in Source Meter mode with a supply voltage of 3715mV.
Started sampling for 60 seconds
Enabled power output on the PPKII
Average current is 2.8mA

Additional information: I actually tried running all of the above code and measurement steps on a different nRF9151DK my rep sent me as a sanity check. Received the same 2.8mA unfortunately.

As far as I can tell, this code should be putting the DK to the deepest sleep possible, though unfortunately it remains awake.

RE: Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

dejans — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:27:43 GMT

Hi,

Can you share your sample code for all test cases including build commands, so that I could try to replicate your results?

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Current consumption testing of basic GPIO usage on nRF9151DK

Sage_Duggal — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 04:55:53 GMT

I did another slight variation today, with the following code:

#include <modem/lte_lc.h>

#include <zephyr/sys/poweroff.h>

int main(void) {

lte_lc_power_off();

k_sleep(K_MSEC(1000));

sys_poweroff();

return 0;

}

My prj.conf was the following:

CONFIG_POWEROFF=y

CONFIG_LTE_LINK_CONTROL=y

- With the PPKII in Source Mode set to 3.7V.

- PPKII VOut connected to VDD_nRF on nRF9151DK P22

- PPKII GND connected to GND on nRF9151DK P22

Current measurement is still 2.8mA which is the active CPU current. It appears this is the lowest the DK will ever go?