nRF52832 Current Measurements

[zeb]

Hello,

We recently received an eval kit the the nRF52832, but we were told not to take current measurements with this version. This presents a problem since we are evaluating this chip and need to have a better understanding of the current draws. Could you provide the average current during Advertise and Connect at 0dBm and the sleep currents with RAM retention?

Thanks, Zeb

[Stian Røed Hafskjold]

I assume you have the preview dev. kit with the preview chip version. The DK has more components than just the chip and the reference design, which leads to a higher chance of error. You can easily modify the DK so that only the chip with the ref design draws current. Take a look at the DK schematic: www.nordicsemi.com/.../62078460

The problem is not the DK itself, but how to do the measurements properly. The way the nRF52 power supply works is by rapidly charging a capacitor which will result in a high frequency spike, which some (most?) measurement tools are not able to measure. The solution is to filter out the spike with a regular RC filter.

There is also this errata when using DCDC mode: infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp, which applies to the preview version of the chip.

You can read more about measuring the chip here in Øyvind's answer: devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../

If you want to look at the average current consumption regarding radio transmission, CPU processing and sleep, take a look at chapter 21.3, 8.2 and 16.20.1 respectively in the nrf52832 product specification: infocenter.nordicsemi.com/.../nrf52832_ps.html

EDIT 01.12.15

We have posted a series of tutorials about measuring current on the nRF52:

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../

[Stian Røed Hafskjold]

I will look into this. Probably do some measurements and post them here so you can have a look.