Bluetooth Low Energy connected ‘System-on-Module’ family employs Nordic SoC to speed hardware and software design in control system applications

Nordic Semiconductor today announces that Grimstad, Norway-based module developer, Jetro AS, has selected Nordic’s award-winning nRF52832 Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) for its ‘EVE System-on-Module’ family, designed for use in ultra low power data acquisition, data processing, and control system applications.

The EVE System-on-Module range is comprised of the ‘EVE BLE module’, the ‘EVE BLE Ethernet module’, the ‘EVE BLE RS485 module’, and the ‘EVE CAN module’, each designed to provide a robust and flexible base for enterprise and industrial control system product development. The products form a hardware and software platform designed to be a robust and flexible base for control system product development. The modules feature standardized IOs and common operating system (OS) drivers helping to simplify the design process of new wireless products, reduce overall costs, and accelerate time-to-market.

The modules are designed to interface with the control systems of industrial equipment allowing operators to configure and monitor the systems across the nRF52832 SoC-powered Bluetooth LE link using a Bluetooth 4.0 (and later) smartphone or tablet. A key advantage of the modules is that they eliminate the need for an expensive and rarely used graphical user interface (GUI) on each industrial machine or control systems.

The EVE BLE module comes in an 18 by 25 by 3mm form factor, while the EVE BLE Ethernet module, EVE BLE RS485 module, and EVE CAN module are all offered in 18 by 40 by 3mm packaging to accommodate their additional interface options. In addition to Bluetooth LE connectivity, the EVE BLE Ethernet module provides Ethernet’s embedded TCP/IP connectivity, while the EVE CAN module enables Controller Area Network (CAN) communication, a popular industrial communication standard. The EVE BLE RS485 module supports RS-485 local network communication. The modules are qualified over the -40° to 85°C industrial temperature range.

The nRF52832 SoC’s powerful 64MHz, 32-bit ARM® Cortex® M4F processor not only runs Nordic’s S132 SoftDevice (a Bluetooth 5-certifed RF software protocol stack) but also the module’s application software and supervisory functions. The Nordic SoC also supports Over-the-Air Device Firmware Updates (OTA-DFU).

All the EVE modules offer a Contiki OS-based software framework for application development, while the EVE Universal App enables system configuration and service functions as well as logging and reporting data results to the user’s smartphone or tablet.

The EVE modules are designed for use in battery-powered products, with both hardware and software optimized for very low power consumption to extend battery life. The nRF52832 SoC is engineered to minimize power consumption and employs a fully-automatic power management system offering processing performance of 58 CoreMark/mA, up to twice as power efficient as competing devices.

Nordic’s nRF52832 Bluetooth low energy SoC, a member of Nordic’s sixth generation of ultra low power (ULP) wireless connectivity solutions, supports Bluetooth 5, ANT™ and proprietary 2.4GHz RF software and was the world’s highest performance single-chip Bluetooth LE solution upon launch. The SoC delivers up to 60 percent more generic processing power, offering 10 times the Floating Point performance and twice the DSP performance compared to competing solutions. The SoC is supplied with the S132 SoftDevice which supports advanced Bluetooth LE applications. The S132 SoftDevice Central, Peripheral, Broadcaster and Observer Bluetooth LE roles, supports up to twenty connections, and enables concurrent role operation.

“One of the major reasons for introducing the EVE modules was to move the user interface from the product to the excellent display we all have on our smartphones,” says Tordis Merete Hovstad Aas, Jetro Managing Director. “This is especially relevant for products that would otherwise need a typically expensive display mounted on each product.”

“We selected the nRF52832 SoC because it offered a Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity solution with extremely low power consumption and at an attractive cost,” continues Hovstad Aas. “We have used Nordic technology for more than a decade. The technical support documentation is good and we are planning more EVE modules based on Nordic’s nRF52 Series SoCs.”

• About Jetro AS
• About nRF52832
• About Nordic Semiconductor ASA