Nordic moves into Wi-Fi to fulfil Matter protocol needs
The nRF7002 is a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 companion IC from Nordic Semiconductor that is aimed at the wireless IoT market.
As a result of its introduction Nordic’s ultra-low-power wireless IoT product range now covers Bluetooth, cellular IoT and Wi-Fi.
The nRF7002 is described as a ‘companion IC’ which means it is designed to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and Wi-Fi-based location information (SSID sniffing of local Wi-Fi hubs) when used alongside Nordic’s existing products. These include the nRF52 and nRF53 Series multiprotocol SoCs, and nRF91 Series cellular IoT Systems-in-Package (SiPs). The nRF7002 can also be used in conjunction with non-Nordic host devices.
The launch of the nRF7002 follows Nordic’s 2020 acquisition of the development team, core Wi-Fi expertise, and Wi-Fi IP tech assets of Imagination Technologies Group (see Imagination sells its Ensigma WiFi6 business to Nordic Semi).
Wi-Fi forms an integral part of the Matter protocol championed by Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung for the smart home and consumer IoT. By adding Wi-Fi to its product range Nordic will now support all three wireless protocols used in Matter. Namely: Bluetooth LE for commissioning, Thread for low power mesh networking, and Wi-Fi for high-speed wireless applications.
“We were able to bring our first Wi-Fi IC to market very quickly as a result of acquiring an extremely capable Wi-Fi team alongside a portfolio of Wi-Fi assets that team had already developed,” said Svein-Egil Nielsen, CTO of Nordic, in a statement. “Nordic has also ensured that developing Nordic-based Wi-Fi 6 applications will be as simple as developing any other Nordic wireless IoT application, including using the same development tools and nRF Connect SDK.”
The nRF7002 is supplied in a 6mm by 6mm QFN package and is available in sample quantities
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