An external 32 kHz crystal will give lower average current consumption than using the RC oscillator, at the expense of cost and board space. There are primarily 3 reasons the current consumption is lower:
The RC oscillator must be calibrated every 4 seconds to be accurate enough. Calibration normally takes about 17 ms, and requires the 16 MHz to be running, giving an average current consumption increase of about 6-7 µA.
The receive window must be widened to account for the worse accuracy. Since the RC is 250 ppm, compared with typically 20-30 ppm for an external crystal, the radio must receive for a slightly longer time, giving an increase of 1-2 µA average
The run current or the RC is 0.8 µA instead of 0.4 µA for a typical crystal.
In total, this gives 8-10 µA extra average current consumption. Depending on application, this may be enough to justify the cost and board space for a crystal.
Is this also applicable for the nRF8001 BLE chip ? Just want to be sure this mechanism of using the internal RC oscillator and the 4 sec. calibration interval is also done in the nRF8001 chip.
Is this also applicable for the nRF8001 BLE chip ? Just want to be sure this mechanism of using the internal RC oscillator and the 4 sec. calibration interval is also done in the nRF8001 chip.
