High Current Consumption (6.3mA) in System OFF with SQSPI Enabled on nRF54L15

[Ghazi-Faisal]

Hi nordic team,
I have tried enabling SQSPI on the system off sample, but the power consumption jumped to 6.3mA in system off mode; I tried to disable the cpulfpr core but couldn't find anything, so I have attached my sample code with system off and sqspi enabled to help identify why the current remains so high.
Regards,

1581.system_off.zip

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

In system off mode, the cores are switched off, and the system should be in sleep mode.

If you see excessive current draw at this point, I would recommend that you look into your gpio states, specifically the CSN pin in this case. This should be high in idle state.

Are you testing on a custom board or a nRF54L15-DK?

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[Ghazi-Faisal]

Could you clarify if you are referring to the CSN (Chip Select) pin? If so, yes, it remains HIGH during System OFF mode.

I am currently building for the nrf54l15 target, and my custom board uses the same flash IC and the same configuration as the DK.

For context, this is a custom board. The baseline consumption is 2.6 µA when the flash is not in use, so the 6.3 mA draw appears specifically linked to the SQSPI being enabled.

[Ghazi-Faisal]

Håkon Alseth said:

Should this signal be ~1.7V?

This is digital signal and it should be low. so I think it should be close to zero

[Ghazi-Faisal]

Håkon Alseth said:

Floating GPIOs will change based on how the system behaves.  

Aside from rgb led and LOAD_SWITCH, which are already set to their idle state before going to system_off, all other used gpios are inputs.

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

Please read my former answers.

I strongly advice that you enable pull inside the GPIO pad on all your connected GPIOs, by setting this for each of your connected signals:

https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ps_nrf54L15/page/gpio.html#ariaid-title22

You can also search around for "floating inputs" - this will cause excessive current consumption in your custom board unless properly addressed.

 

Given that LOAD_SWITCH is 1.7V, and you state this:

Ghazi-Faisal said:

This is digital signal and it should be low.

This is clearly something you should address.

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[Ghazi-Faisal]

Håkon Alseth said:

I strongly advice that you enable pull inside the GPIO pad on all your connected GPIOs, by setting this for each of your connected signals:

I tried pulling all GPIOs but that didn't help.

Håkon Alseth said:

This is clearly something you should address.

do you have any thorughts of how to debug this?

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

You are not sharing any in-depth information, other that "did not help" - if you want help, please be verbose.

Can you please test on a DK, and try to replicate it there?

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[Ghazi-Faisal]

I’m not entirely sure what information would help you diagnose this issue. Please let me know what details would be useful (for example logs, configuration files, DTS, power measurements, etc.), and I’ll provide whatever I can.

Also, I don’t currently have the DK with me to run additional tests. If there’s another way we can work around this or gather useful information without the DK, please let me know.