nRF52810 unprogrammed current consumption

[Robbie_B]

Hi,

Our company offers product with and without Bluetooth.  The nRF52810 chip will always be present on the hardware, it will just be programmed to either have the radio active or put into constant OFF mode.

Our production is wondering if they can save some time by not doing any programming on the product that won't have Bluetooth; thereby leaving it in the unprogrammed state.  Do you have any information on how much current is drawn by the nRF52810 while it is unprogrammed?  

The design has 5 of the general purpose IO (GPIO) pins connected to another MCU on the board, all of which have external pull-up or pull-down resistors. The other GPIO pins are not connected to anything.  If the nRF52810 is unprogrammed, is there a risk that the floating pins will cause wide changes of input current?

Thanks for your input!

-Robbie

[Simonr]

Hi Robbie

When the nRF52 chips aren't programmed the CPU will be running from RAM, which sets all pins in a reset state. I measured a blank DK just to make sure, and the current consumption on an empty nRF52 chip seems to be ~4.5mA. I suggest you make a tiny program that just calls SYSTEMOFF to minimize the current consumption. 

Best regards,

Simon