Nordic Semiconductor has announced that Boise, Idaho based American Semiconductor, has selected their nRF51822 Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) for its AS_NRF51 Flex-BLE, a flexible integrated circuit (IC) that supports Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity.
The AS_NRF51 Flex-BLE is an ultra-thin version of Nordic’s nRF51822 SoC wafer-level CSP (WL-CSP), employing American Semiconductor’s ‘FleX Semiconductor-on-Polymer (FleX SoP) process to reduce package size to approximately 35µm - roughly half the thickness of a human hair - while the addition of front and back-side polymides from HD MicroSystems provides mechanical strength to allow the IC to bend without breaking. The result is an IC with a robust, thin, and physically flexible form factor designed for solutions that demand ultra thinness, physical flexibility, and high reliability in applications ranging from wearables and logistics to the Internet of Things (IoT). American Semiconductor claims that the AS_NRF51 FleX-BLE is the world’s thinnest and smallest Chip Scale Package (CSP).
Nordic’s nRF51822 SoC is ideally suited for Bluetooth LE and 2.4 GHz ultra low power wireless applications. The nRF51822 is built around a 32-bit Arm® Cortex M0 CPU, 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio, and 256kB/128kB Flash and 32kB/16kB RAM. The SoC is supplied with Nordic’s S130 SoftDevice, a Bluetooth 4.2 qualified concurrent multi-link protocol stack. Nordic’s software architecture includes a clear separation between the RF protocol software and the application code, simplifying development and ensuring the SoftDevice doesn’t become corrupted when developing, compiling, testing, and verifying application code.
The nRF51822 SoC’s Arm CPU, large Flash memory, low power consumption, and excellent 2.4 GHz radio performance made it the ideal choice.
Click here to learn more about American Semiconductor’s Flex-ICs SoC Products.
