Online Power Profiler for BLE: questions and a bug

[9il]

Hello,

Please help me to figure out how to use https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/power/w/opp/2/online-power-profiler-for-bluetooth-le for time interval estimation. I have a few questions.

1. Why does connection event length include 'standby'? What is it?
2. If HF clock is already enabled, will it reduce the connection length by the time of the crystal ramp-up?
3. Why does connection event length include postprocessing? Can post-processing overlap with the next connection event RX or TX operation?

A small related bug report:

nRF5340 has the wrong simulation when RX is set to some value instead of 0. Try to set it to 1, and you will see a massive increase in power consumption. The picture will show the correct char of power consumption. However, the report numbers will be wrong. If you integrate the power chart on the picture, you will see how different it is from the report number of the power consumption.

[Simonr]

Hi

1. This standby current you're seeing in the online power profiler is the standby current before the radio turns on, where the HFCLK is running (consuming ~200µA).

2. Yes, the crystal ramp up won't happen if the crystal is already running.

3. As you can see here, the post processing is SoftDevice timing-critical, so it will not be able to overlap with the next event, as the connection event won't be considered finished before post-processing is completed. It is added in the Power Profiler as it is considered part of the connection event.

I have forwarded your bug report to the developers of the tool. Thank you for letting us know!

Best regards,

Simon

[9il]

Thank you, Simonr!

But why is standby is needed as part of connection event?

If HF is always on and we don't need crystal ramp up, do we still need standby as part of connection event?

Kind regards,

Ilia

[LongQi]

9il said:

But why is standby is needed as part of connection event?

I have the same question.

[Simonr]

The standby power is not needed if the HF clock is already on for some other reason, but the OPP reflects waking up from sleep mode to connect. If you have follow ups, please create a new ticket as this ticket is a year old at this point.

Best regards,

Simon

[LongQi]

thanks, that answered my question. Got it.