Contemporary communication has been dominated by wireless systems. Electronics increasingly rely on data exchange without the use of cables. This applies to household appliances, as well as industrial, medical automation, and Internet of Things solutions. One of the most commonly used short-range communication standards is Bluetooth, particularly its energy-efficient variant, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which allows for the construction of compact battery-powered devices.
However, each device of this type requires appropriate design of the RF path, antenna, as well as time-consuming tests and certification procedures. Therefore, a practical solution is to use ready-made communication modules that integrate the radio system, microcontroller, and necessary accompanying elements. One such solution is the Raytac brand modules available in TME’s offer.
Raytac communication modules
Raytac modules use various generations of Nordic Semiconductor SoCs, equipped with Cortex-M4F or Cortex-M33 cores, among others. Depending on the model, they offer from 192kB to 1.5MB of program memory and up to 256kB of RAM. This amount of memory is sufficient for the chip to handle both communication and the main application.
The modules support Bluetooth Low Energy in versions from 4.0 to 6.2. In Bluetooth LE communication, speeds of up to 2Mb/s are available, as well as Long Range modes of 500kb/s and 125kb/s. Selected modules based on nRF54 systems also support proprietary transmission in the 2.4GHz band with speeds of up to 4Mb/s. The maximum transmitter power is 4, 6, or 8dBm, depending on the model, while the declared receiver sensitivity reaches -103dBm. In addition to BLE communication, the hardware platform can work with ANT+, Thread, and Zigbee protocols, as well as the IEEE 802.15.4 standard.
Built-in AES-128 encryption (using a cryptographic coprocessor) facilitates the protection of transmitted data, which will be particularly useful in projects focusing on security. The modules can be powered by a voltage from 1.7V to 5.5V DC and operate in temperatures from -40°C to 105°C. Such a wide range of parameters allows them to be used in both household devices and equipment intended for operation in more challenging external conditions.
Interfaces, antennas, and integration capabilities
Raytac modules provide from 8 to as many as 48 configurable input/output lines and several analog-to-digital converter channels. Additionally, the modules support the most important interfaces found in embedded devices: UART, I2C, I2S, SPI, QSPI, PDM, USB, and NFC. This allows the SoC to be directly connected to sensors, memory, or a display.
Each module is placed on a small PCB designed for surface mounting inside a larger device. Within individual series based on the same system, the modules maintain the same pin layout but may differ in antenna implementation. The antenna can be chip-based, located on the laminate itself, or external, in which case the module has a dedicated u.FL connector for it. Differences in pin layout appear between different series of modules. It’s also worth mentioning the range – according to the manufacturer, it is from 60m to even 750m (in laboratory conditions), depending on the specific model and environmental conditions.
When designing a device that should support Bluetooth communication, it’s worth considering Raytac modules. They are extremely versatile, making their integration with a device much simpler than designing a complete radio path from scratch. An important advantage of this solution is also the simplification of the certification and compliance assessment process for the radio device.
Independently developing the RF path involves costly and time-consuming testing, while using a ready-made, thoroughly tested, and certified module significantly reduces the scope of work related to the radio part. Raytac modules can be used in IoT devices, building and industrial automation, medical electronics, location systems, mobile devices, and sensor systems.
