Nordic nRF54L15 Cortex-M33 wireless MCU halves Rx power consumption over nRF52 chips
Nordic Semiconductor has recently unveiled the 128 MHz nRF54L15 Cortex-M33 multi-protocol wireless microcontroller, the first from the nRF54L Series, and the second from the wider nRF54 family after the more powerful 320 MHz nRF54H20 dual-core Cortex-M33 MCU was introduced last Spring.
While the nRF54H20 was designed to enable new types of IoT devices with a leap in performance and lots of resources with up to 2 MB flash and 1MB SRAM, the new nRF54L15 aims to be an upgrade to the nRF52 series with twice the performance and much better power efficiency, with for instance, half the Rx power consumption over its predecessor.
TrustZone isolation, side-channel protection, and tamper detection
Power consumption – Rx current consumption is half that of the nRF52840
Packages – QFN48 (6×6 mm) and WLCSP (2.4×2.2 mm)
Manufacturing process – TSMC’s 22ULL (22 nm) process technology
Hay SEEED How about youu guys in Engineering Get off your duff and Use this chip in the Next Xiao Release and Get it Right this time without all the half steps in the current Line, IMO
WE deserve it as Users of this stuff.
For Once be ahead of the Curve & Pack instead of playing catchup to Adafruit and Dfrobot and some others. C’mon MAN Do it, Do it NOW!!!
Thank you for the chip selection and reference, I have forwarded your suggestion to our product manager in charge of XIAO, he will carefully consider the plan for the next generation of XIAO. We have always been committed to building XIAO with stronger performance and support for multiple wireless connection methods, which is our goal and direction. I’m sorry I can’t disclose more information because, as you know, it’s sensitive information about the product and the company’s strategy, so thank you again for your suggestions and ideas about XIAO.
It’s now in End of Year full Production… Make an early move NOW!
Availability
nRF54L15 DK is available for developing with nRF54L15. QFN samples are available to selected customers now and will be broadly available when nRF54L15 enters enters full-volume production towards the end of this year. Please contact your Nordic sales representative for more information, or subscribe to nRF54L Series news to stay updated.
Loaded with NVM and Global RTC
1.5 MB NVM and 256 KB RAM
Comprehensive set of peripherals, including new Global RTC available in System OFF, 14-bit ADC…
Quiet in here… LOL . So here is the latest if you want the BEST then go Watch this…
The latest news and Info, nRF54L15 we are talking about 2uA. sleep, Global RTC (works in sleep) 50% less RF receiver current than previous nrf52, It Doubles the Processing power while cutting power consumption by 50% , designed with coin cell batteries in mind. 8 month to 16 month battery life, better peripherals and more of them.
If none of that blows up your skirt, then the Software Development platform Will , more Dev kits than anyone on the market for very reasonable prices that often include a Jlink programmer/ Debugger more than what any other Hardware maker does. Webinars- FREE, Developer Academy- FREE, The Best Youtube training Videos- FREE, the Nrf_SDK is the most comprehensive IDE wrapped in VSCODE makes it a snap to get going in if you have 30 minutes to 3 hours to learn something new and useful that’s not going to be Dropped or not supported at a whim the next day.
So some fresh info on the differences between Nrf’s
Processing power and efficiency
Scenario
nRF54L15/10/05
nRF52840
CPU running Coremark from NVM, cache enabled
500 CoreMark score (3.90 / MHz)
212 CoreMark score (3.3 / MHz)
Processing efficiency
20 µA/MHz(CPU running CoreMark from
NVM / 128 MHz)
52 µA/MHz(CPU running CoreMark
from NVM / 64 MHz)
CPU running CoreMark from NVM, Cache enabled
2.6 mA
3.3 mA
The nRF54L Series has a 128 MHz CPU speed, which is double the 64 MHz speed of the nRF52840 SoC. Combined with a slightly higher CoreMark score per MHz, this results in a 135% increase in the overall CoreMark score compared to the nRF52840 SoC. Additionally, the active current is reduced by 21%, dropping from 3.3 mA to 2.6 mA. The nRF54L Series also achieves 62% improvement in processing efficiency, measured in µA/MHz.
The bottom line is that the nRF54L Series can perform more computations in less time and with lower energy consumption. Reduced execution time allows the device to return to sleep faster, increasing the overall sleep time, which further lowers the average power consumption.
Sleep
Scenario
nRF54L15/10/05
nRF52840
System ON, 256 KB RAM retention
2.9 µA
2.35 µA
System ON, no RAM retention
0.7 µA
0.97 µA
System OFF with Global RTC wakeup
0.9 µA
RTC unavailable in System OFF*
System OFF
0.7 µA
0.4 µA
While the nRF54L Series significantly reduces active and idle current in several key scenarios, you will notice that some values are higher than on the nRF52840 SoC. This is primarily due to the higher leakage associated with a smaller process node, which can lead to slightly higher sleep current in specific scenarios.
Additionally, the nRF54L Series features a System OFF mode with Global RTC wakeup, which is not available on the nRF52 Series. This mode offers lower current consumption than the alternatives available on the nRF52840 SoC, enabling deeper sleep in more use cases. The closest alternative on the nRF52840 SoC is System ON with RTC wakeup, which consumes 1.5 µA, which is 87.5% more power.
I hope they can move it to the next Package just released same physical size but 4 or more additional IO’ pins.
not 100 % but if they are using the “QFN48” the same size “QFN52” has 4 more IO pins ,so lets dial it in Seeedineers.
PJ 
Count me in!
