Development kit supports Bluetooth Low Energy designs

It enables developers to test and evaluate designs based on the dual processor SoC (System on Chip).

The SoC nRF5340 supports Bluetooth Low Energy as well as all functions of Bluetooth 5.1 and Bluetooth 5, plus Bluetooth mesh, Thread, Zigbee, NFC, ANT, 802.15.4 and 2,4GHz proprietary.

The nRF5340 SoC combines a high-performance 128MHz Arm Cortex-M33 with 1MB flash and 256kB RAM as application processor with a 64MHz Arm Cortex-M33 with 256kB flash and 64kB RAM as programmable, ultra-low-power network processor.

Arm TrustZone offers secure execution while Arm Cryptocell 312 functions as root-of-trust.

The SoC has an extended operating temperature of up to 105°C and advanced digital interfaces.

With these features the nRF5340 is ideal for applications such as professional lighting and industrial, wearables, medical, smart home, asset tracking and RTLS (Real-Time Locating System).

For quick testing of the nRF5340 NFC-A tag peripheral the PDK includes a NFC antenna. A Segger J-Link debugger allows programming and debugging of both the integrated SoC and external targets.

Thanks to hardware compatibility with the Arduino Uno Revision 3 standard external shields, such as the Power Profiler Kit, can be easily interfaced. Four user-programmable LEDs and four buttons simplify input and output.

The PDK can be powered by USB or an external source, but also includes a CR2032 battery holder and a Li-Po battery connector for in-field testing.

The nRF Connect Software Development Kit (SDK) for the nRF5340 SoC provides broad support for the PDK.

It includes a complete solution that combines Zephyr RTOS, protocol stacks, application examples and hardware drivers.

Source code management with Git and free Segger Embedded Studio IDE support are available.

When the nRF5340 SoC is closer to being production ready the PDK will be replaced by the nRF5340 Development Kit.