Nordic Semiconductor nRF7001 Wi-Fi 6 Companion IC

Nordic Semiconductor has expanded its nRF70 Series of Wi-Fi 6 companion ICs with the nRF7001. Complementing the 2.4 and 5 GHz capable nRF7002, the nRF7001 offers a low power Wi-Fi 6 companion IC for end products requiring 2.4 GHz connectivity only. The companion IC lowers the cost of the bill of materials (BoM) for designs requiring single band capability for smart home, smart city, industrial automation and other low power Wi-Fi IoT applications.

The companion IC is designed to provide low power and secure Wi-Fi connectivity as well as Wi-Fi assisted locationing based on Service Set identifier (SSID) scanning.

Like the nRF7002, the nRF7001 companion IC can be used together with Nordic’s nRF52 and nRF53 Series multiprotocol Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) and the nRF9160 cellular IoT (LTE-M/NB-IoT) System-in-Package (SiP). It can also be used in conjunction with non-Nordic host devices.

The companion IC offers a drop-in, single-band alternative to the dual-band companion IC for products that only need to operate in the 2.4 GHz band. The companion IC supports Station (STA), software emulated Access Point (SoftAP) and Wi-Fi Direct operation, and is compatible with the IEEE 802.11b, a, g, n (Wi-Fi 4), and ax (Wi-Fi 6) standards.

The product also offers coexistence with Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread and Zigbee. The companion IC supports Target Wake Time (TWT), a Wi-Fi 6 power saving feature. Interfacing with the nRF52840 or another host processor is done via Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) or Quad SPI (QSPI). The device offers a single spatial stream, 20 MHz channel bandwidth, 64 QAM (MCS7), OFDMA, up to 86 Mbps PHY throughput and BSS colouring.