[Unboxing video] Ultra-low power Bluetooth evaluation board, do you want to try it out? onsemi RSL15-EVB

Latest update time：2023-12-20 12:23

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Hello everyone! Welcome to the Mouser Electronics review video. Today I bring you a low-power Bluetooth evaluation board RSL15-evb produced by ON Semiconductor.

The development of low-power wireless communication technology has promoted the birth and application of the Internet of Things, and further promoted the rapid development of wireless communication technology.

Among the numerous IoT devices, more than 35% are equipped with Bluetooth technology. What is the magic of Bluetooth technology that can it become the big brother in the field of wireless communication of the Internet of Things? This is because it has the following advantages:

1. ISM free frequency band
2. Use adaptive frequency hopping technology to increase anti-interference ability
3. Ultra-low power consumption
4. Fast connection establishment speed (Bluetooth 4.0 takes 3ms to establish a connection)

figure 1

Since its birth, Bluetooth technology can be divided into three major stages, one is classic Bluetooth, the other is Bluetooth low energy, and the third is Bluetooth MESH. Precisely because Bluetooth has such a wide range of applications, there are many Bluetooth chip manufacturers, and competition in the mid- to low-end is fierce. Especially in China, the retail price of 32-bit Bluetooth chips can reach less than 2 yuan.

The development board we will introduce today is the RSL15-EVB from ON Semiconductor , which is equipped with the RSL15 low-power Bluetooth chip. Let’s take a look at what trump card it relies on to stand out in the fierce competition.

1Introduction to development board

Figure 2: Front and back of the development board

Scroll down to view details

Development board introduction

RSL15-EVB is a development board officially launched by ON Semiconductor. It is used to evaluate the performance of the RSL15 chip and can also be used to develop and debug Bluetooth chip programs.

The RSL15 chip is one of the 5.2 secure wireless MCU series products launched by ON Semiconductor. It is an ultra-low-power secure low-power Bluetooth 5.2 wireless MCU based on the Arm ^® Cortex ^® −M33 processor and is designed for smart connected devices in industrial and medical applications. The RSL15 features built-in power management, a wide supply voltage range, flexible GPIO and clocking schemes, and an extensive peripheral set, providing a significant degree of design flexibility for high-performance and ultra-low-power applications. The RSL15 contains 80kB RAM, divided into 64KB user RAM and 16KB baseband RAM, and has two flash memory options of 284kB or 512kB.

The main features of this development board are:

The development board integrates the J-link interface, which enables downloading and debugging of programs without the need for other equipment.
The JTAG interface is open to the public through a 10-pin connector.
Supports USB power supply, battery power supply and external power supply, and USB power supply and battery power supply support automatic switching
All pins of RSl15 are lead out
Supports two buttons: a reset button and a user button, connected to GPIO0
Support CR2032 battery holder
Easy-to-use configuration for quickly measuring power consumption

2 Development board experience

The demonstration session is divided into two major parts:

1. Firmware burning

2. Use the mobile app to demonstrate

The first step is to install the development environment and burn the firmware.

1. Go to the official website to download ON Semiconductor IDE Installer and SDK

2. Install ON Semiconductor IDE

3. Open the IDE, select a workspace, and press the following keys to open the CMSIS-pack manager

image 3

4. Select the Import existing pack button and go to the directory where the RSL15 pack downloaded from the official website is located:

Figure 4

5. After the installation is complete, refresh the pack

6. Re-open the package manager and select onsemi->RSL15 series->RSL15. All routines for the chip will appear on the right. Select routine, ble-periphral_server

7. Compile and download the program to the development board

Figure 5

The second step is to install the application on your phone: RSL central

1. When you open the RSL central homepage, various Bluetooth devices will pop up. We choose ble_periph_server and click to connect.

2. It can be seen that the interface has three functions, one is the battery power display, the other is the LED light control function, and the third is the real-time status of the button

3. Turn the LED light on and off. You can see that D2 on the development board will respond in real time.

4. Similarly, when you press the SW1 switch, the corresponding status will be displayed in real time on the app.

This is just a demonstration of a basic Bluetooth peripheral routine. Bluetooth also has many very interesting applications, such as Bluetooth mice, Bluetooth keyboards, Bluetooth heart rate meters, Bluetooth notification services for iPhones, etc. Interested students can study in depth on their own. one time.

Low power consumption is the core tool of Bluetooth. RSL15 has excellent power consumption control. Let’s measure the power consumption of this chip. In order to shield the JLINK chip, LED lights and other peripherals from the impact on the current, we need to make the following configuration according to the development board schematic diagram:

1. Based on the ble_periph_srv_sleep program, modify the broadcast interval to 2000ms, the TX_POWER of RF is 0, and burn the program

Figure 6

2. Turn all 8 bits of the DEBUG-EN switch to the OFF position to shield the influence of JLINK

3. Unplug the jumper cap of VBAT-SEL

4. Connect the ammeter in series to the VBAT and VOUT pins of VBAT-SEL

5. Let’s burn a low-power application and measure the power consumption again.

Figure 7

3 Development board application direction

1. Industrial Automation and Sensing

2. Medical Internet Sensors

3. Wearable devices

4. Asset tracking

5. Electronic tags and access control

6. Electronic Signage

7. Data logger

8. Smart appliances

9. Energy harvesting switch

4 review experience

The extremely low power consumption of this chip is impressive, and the supporting information is complete, which also greatly lowers the entry threshold. However, the chip has too few routines, such as commonly used ANCS services, HRS, HID and other services, are not provided. At the same time, the corresponding app functions only provide basic examples. I believe ON Semiconductor will complete them in the future.

If you are interested in this development board,
you can click here to purchase it on the Mouser Electronics official website .

Figure 8

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