Nordic Semiconductor announced that its award-winning nRF9160 low power System-in-Package (SiP) with integrated LTE-M/NB-IoT modem and GPS has been certified for use on Australian telco giant Telstra’s LTE-M network. Telstra’s LTE-M network infrastructure covers approximately three million square kilometers in Australia, and certification immediately enables cellular IoT connectivity for Telstra customers to deploy the nRF9160 SiP in their product designs.
The nRF9160 is a low power SiP, certified for global cellular IoT applications, comprising of a multimode LTE-M/NB-IoT modem with integrated RF front end (RFFE), GPS, and power management in a compact package. The 64 MHz processor includes 1 MB Flash and 256 KB RAM, a range of analog and digital peripherals, automated power and clock management, Arm TrustZone for trusted execution, and Arm CryptoCell 310 for application-layer security. The processor communicates with the LTE modem through a BSD secure sockets API and supports the application layer protocol (for example CoAP, MQTT, or LWM2M) and the application itself. The nRF9160 SiP’s LTE modem supports both SIM and eSIM, offers 700 to 2200 MHz LTE band support, 23 dBm output power, and single pin 50 Ω antenna- and UICC-interfaces. The LTE stack layers L1-L3, IPv4/IPv6, TCP/UDP, TLS/DTLS are part of the modem firmware.
The SiP is supported by the nRF9160 DK, a precertified single-board development kit, and the nRF Connect SDK, a software development kit that includes application layer protocols, application examples, and LTE modem firmware offered as precertified and precompiled downloads. Target applications for the nRF9160 SiP include asset tracking, smart city, smart agriculture, industrial, smart metering, wearables, and medical solutions.
This certification will allow Nordic customers to use the Telstra network. It is going to work on Telstra’s LTE-M network, and it is going to provide the features that Telstra offers as a carrier for that network. For projects that require extremely low power, battery operation, and a small form factor, the nRF9160 is the only choice. Nordic customers already have volume projects under development using the nRF9160 that they will be operating on the Telstra network in the second half of 2020.
