Nordic's nRF52xxx Bluetooth microcontrollers are a well-liked family. With the nRF54, Nordic presented a new chip version with significantly higher performance features. The NRF54L15-DK development kit makes getting started with these new chips really easy.

Of course, the Nordic nRF54 family's headline improvement is its ARM Cortex M33 core. Reaching a top speed of 128 MHz and profiting from improvements in the instruction set architecture, the chip effectively doubles the compute performance available to the Bluetooth SOC while managing to stay on top of power consumption.

Flexible Development Kit

The NRF54L15-DK development kit, which has the basic outline shown in the figure, helps you get started with the new processor.

Its nRF54L15 microcontroller represents the top-line member of the family, providing 256 kilobytes of RAM and 1500 kilobytes of remanent storage. Embedded software development can start out taking advantage of all the capabilities of the microcontroller – if an application can be designed comfortably without the need for the entire memory complement, the development kit helps scale-down via a core emulation feature.

Applications that plan to use large amounts of resource data are aided by the presence of an external flash memory chip using the SPI interface. A set of solder bridges permits the disconnection of this flash memory if the GPIO pins used for communication are better suited for another type of application.

The three port headers can be used to interact with external hardware. They accept connections via standard Dupont cables, making it easy to connect breadboards or separate PCB-housed electronics.

Antennas and Debugging Peripherals On Board

Antenna matching can be an interesting task. In the case of the NRF54L15-DK development board, a Bluetooth antenna is directly connected to the nRF54 SOC. This means that Bluetooth software development can commence without much effort needed for the design and matching of the antenna. If an external antenna is to be used, a connector is provided that uses the well-established uFL standard. For NFC, a connector permits the attachment of an NFC antenna.

As for debugging, Nordic partners with Segger of Germany. The board provides a USBC interface, which means that mobile phone cables can easily be repurposed for connecting the development board to the workstation of choice. As for actual programming, the SEGGER J-Link Onboard firmware is used, thereby providing simple access to Segger's development ecosystem.

Finally, the board can also act as a programming device for further, home-made prototypes. This can be accomplished via the debug-out interface, where a flat band cable can be connected.

Measure Power Consumption Easily

Thanks to careful circuit design, the Nordic Semiconductor evaluation board provides embedded-systems engineers with simple ways to measure the system's power consumption under test. This is made possible via its VDDM current measurement input, which provides a 10-ohm resistor in series with an application circuit. An oscilloscope or similar device can be connected, thereby providing information about power consumption via a trace-multiply mathematical operation. Alternatively, a classic ammeter can be used if its sensitivity and averaging values are set up correctly.

Conclusion

Developers seeking to evaluate the nRF54L15, nRF54L10, or nRF54L05 microcontroller by Nordic Semiconductor - are advised to use the NRF54L15-DK development board. The wide range of peripherals on the PCB means the system comes up quickly. In short, this Nordic Semiconductor development kit always deserves a full recommendation.