Nordic Semiconductor (Country Manager for Korea, Choi Soo-chul) has made a full-scale entry into the Wi-Fi wireless IoT market with the launch of its first Wi-Fi chip.

Nordic announced on the 17th that it has released the nRF7002, an ultra-low power, dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (Wi-Fi® 6) companion IC.

With the launch of this chip, Nordic Semiconductor has now become one of the few companies to provide all three of the world's most widely used wireless IoT technologies: Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT solutions.

The nRF7002 can be described as a 'companion IC' designed to be used with Nordic's existing products to provide seamless Wi-Fi connectivity and Wi-Fi-based location identification (SSID sniffing of local Wi-Fi hubs).

Nordic products that can be used with this include the nRF52® and nRF53® series Bluetooth SoCs (Systems-on-Chip) and the nRF91® series Cellular IoT SiPs (Systems-in-Package).

In addition, the nRF7002 can be used with host devices other than Nordic.

The launch of the nRF7002 is due to Imagination Technologies Group (Ima), which was acquired by Nordic in 2020.It is based on the Wi-Fi development team, core Wi-Fi expertise, and Wi-Fi IP technology assets of Gination Technologies Group.

Nordic Semiconductor has incorporated decades of widely recognized expertise in ultra-low power wireless IoT and silicon design into the nRF7002 and entered the Wi-Fi 6 market, a standard that can extend the operating life of battery-powered wireless IoT devices through improved efficiency.

Wi-Fi is a core element of the smart home matter protocol being driven by numerous leading consumer IoT companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung.

By adding Wi-Fi to its product line, Nordic is now able to support all three wireless protocols used in Matter: Bluetooth LE for commissioning, Thread for low-power mesh networking, and Wi-Fi for high-speed wireless applications.

Svein-Egil Nielsen, CTO and Senior Vice President of R&D and Strategy at Nordic, stated, “By acquiring a highly capable Wi-Fi team and the Wi-Fi portfolio assets already developed by that team, Nordic is able to bring its first Wi-Fi chip to market very quickly. It also supports the simplification of Wi-Fi 6 application development based on Nordic solutions by using the same development tools and nRF Connect SDK as with all other Nordic wireless IoT applications.”

The nRF7002 is available in a 6 x 6mm QFN package and is currently being sampled. Further information can be obtained through Nordic Korea and distributors.