nRF52840 Engineering B PAN 186: How much increased current consumption

[yves]

The engineering B errata mentions PAN 186, that the current consumption in System ON Idle is increased if High-Voltage mode is used. Is there any information available how strong this current increase is? That would help us deciding if we need to avoid High-Voltage mode.

[Sigurd]

Hi,

First note that this issue is only present on the nRF52840 Engineering B(Build code BB0). This issue will be fixed on the next nRF52840 revision. To answer your question, I did a quick measurment here, and I see ~200µA increased current draw in System ON using the high voltage mode.

[yves]

Thanks for the quick answer! What is the timeline for the next revision? We are going to distribute engineering samples of our device soon, so we might have to work with Engineeering B for the time be ing. Is that 200 µA using DC-DC or the LDO? Also, at what voltage was that?

[Sigurd]

The 200µA increase is mostly fixed, and I don't think it will be reduced even if you enable DC/DC or not. I tested this at 4.2 V using LDO.

I think the next revision will come early next year(January/February). But you should contact your local Nordic RSM(regional sales manager) for the timeline. Send me a PM with you location if you don't know who your Nordic RSM is.