Nordic Semiconductor has started volume production of its LTE-M/NB-IoT and GPS cellular IoT module. The nRF9160 SiP has successfully passed a series of major qualifications and certifications. These include: GCF, PTCRB, FCC (US & Lat. AM), CE (EU), ISED (Canada), ACMA (Australia & New Zealand), TELEC/RA (Japan), NCC (Taiwan), and IMDA (Singapore).
At just 10 x 16 x 1mm in size, the nRF9160 SiP is suitable for compact consumer and medical wearables, and asset-tracking devices. Yet it is a complete solution that integrates everything a cellular connection and IoT application may need beyond requiring just an external battery, SIM, and antenna. The SiP’s modem and MCU were designed from the ground-up for optimized power performance in IoT systems. This enables nRF9160 SiP-based devices to stay connected to a cellular network with unparalleled low power consumption.
The nRF9160 is also available on a powerful single-board Development Kit (DK) made for the IoT application developer. This DK comes with free development tool support, a Cloud demonstration platform, and a Software Development Kit (SDK) in GitHub with sample applications to provide a great starting point for product development. To achieve the SiP’s ultra-high integration Nordic partnered with Qorvo to make a SiP that integrates application processor, power management, modem, RF front-end, crystals, and passives. The nRF9160 also supports global operation with a single SiP variant thanks to the combination of Nordic’s multimode LTE-M/NB-IoT modem, SAW-less transceiver, and a custom RF front-end solution from Qorvo.
In parallel, the nRF9160 SiP is the first cellular IoT module to incorporate Arm’s latest ARM Cortex M33 CPU core, which is further supported by 1MB of Flash and 256kB of RAM on-board memory. The SiP is also the first cellular IoT module to incorporate ARM TrustZone and ARM CryptoCell security for Internet-level encryption and application protection with Arm Cortex M-based devices. It is also the only cellular IoT module on the market with integrated GPS support to allow a combination of GPS and cellular data to be used for more accurate positioning than either technology is capable of when used in isolation.
