LE Audio on nrf52840

[Jash]

Hello,

I was looking for solutions to LE Audio and came across nrf5340. Later on diving deep into this I found that nrf52840 SOC also has BLE 5.3. So, my query was can nrf52840 be used to develop LE Audio applications?

I have also noticed the nrf52840 LE Audio Development kit, so I guess using nrf52840 SOC, I should be able to develop LE Audio applications. If so, what SDK support do I need to download?

[daoms]

It seems that things are still not very clear. For 5340 audio DK,

1.who is doing the LC3 coding-decoding process, or who is running the LC3 code, I suppose it is the 5340 itself, right? 

2.the DSP  CS47L63 on board is acting only as ADC and DAC. It just converts the I2S signal(PCM format)  to analog output to headphone? It doesn't do any compression to audio data, nothing to do with LC3. You can use any other ADC/DAC instead, not concerning about the power consumption or cost etc.  Right?

Appreciate any explanation.

Tks,

[SwRa]

Hello,

I fully understand the confusion here, as there are indeed two instances of 'codec' appearing in relation to the LE Audio specification and the nRF5340 audio DK. The first, most prominent use of 'Codec' usually refers to the software codec that encodes/decodes the audio stream that is to be transmitted or has been received, most commonly the mandatory LC3 codec. You are correct that this codec is completely software based.

The second possible use of 'codec' is what we usually differentiate by saying 'hardware codec', which in the nRF5340 Audio DK case refers to the CS47L63. The CS47L63 is a high performance low-power audio DSP: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs47l63/ 

The CS47L63 is specifically made and optimized for the earbud use-case.

As you can see from its datasheet it also has the possibility to do DSP on top of the ADC/DAC functionality, but the nrf5340_audio reference application only uses it as a ADC/DAC currently

Also, it is possible to switch the CS47L63 with any other ADC/DAC..

Best Regards,

Swathy

[daoms]

Hi SwRa,

Thanks for your clarification. I think It's helpful for those who are new to 5340 Audio DK.

[ken_he]

SwRa

How much current can the nRF5340 consume in CIS and BIS modes under LE AUDIO?