Supports all features of Bluetooth 5, 5.1, and 5.2
12Mbps USB 2.0 interface adopted
Includes 5V VBUS→3.3V conversion regulator


On the 19th, Nordic Semiconductor released the nRF52820 Bluetooth 5.2 SoC, the sixth product in the nRF52 series. The nRF52820 is a lower-version wireless connectivity solution that supports Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, Zigbee, and proprietary 2.4GHz.

It supports all features of Bluetooth 5, 5.1, and 5.2, including long range, 2Mbps transmission speed, direction finding, LE power control, and LE synchronous channels. In addition, it includes a full-speed (12Mbps) USB 2.0 interface.

Equipped with a 64MHz 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 processor, 256KB of flash, and 32KB of RAM, and supporting operating temperatures from -40°C to 105°C, it supports various commercial and industrial wireless applications such as professional lighting, asset tracking, HID, and gaming consoles as a single-chip option.

When the nRF52820's multiprotocol wireless capabilities and +8dBm output power are used with an application MCU, it can operate as a network processor in gateway and smart home applications.

The integrated USB peripheral includes a dedicated regulator that converts the 5V VBUS signal to the 3.3V required for the USB signal interface, along with the main power supply regulator, thereby reducing costs and space associated with external regulators.

The nRF52820 includes up to 18 GPIOs, an analog comparator, and analog and digital interfaces such as SPI, UART, TWI, and QDEC. The supply voltage can cover an input range of 1.7V to 5.5V, allowing the nRF52820 to be powered by a coin cell or a rechargeable battery.

When connected to a USB host, the nRF52820 can be powered directly via an always-on 5V VBUS signal. Nordic provides a reference layout for this configuration.

The nRF52820 is supported by S112 and S140 (Bluetooth 5.1 authentication protocol stacks) and S122 (alpha version) SoftDevice. S112 is a memory-optimized peripheral stack, and S122 is a central stack. S140 is a protocol stack that supports all Bluetooth 5 features for central and peripheral devices, including long range and a data transfer speed of 2 Mbps.

Development of the nRF52820 is supported by Nordic’s nRF5 SDK (Software development kit) v16.0.0, and support for all nRF5 SDKs is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2020.

The nRF52833 DK (Development kit) can be used for nRF52820 emulation. This DK is compatible with the Arduino Uno Rev3 standard, and for development, compatible Nordic Power profiler kits and various shields from partner companies can be used.

The nRF52820 is currently available as an engineering sample. It is provided in a 5×5mm QFN40 package with 18 GPIOs and is drop-in compatible with the nRF52833 SoC.