BT840F, BT840, BT840E, BT840N, BT840NE nRF52840 5.3, 802.15.4 Modules, with nRF21540

BT840F, BT840, BT840E, BT840N, BT840NE nRF52840 5.3, 802.15.4 Modules, with nRF21540

BT840F is an advanced, highly flexible solution for today's increasingly demanding Ultra Low Power, Ultra Long Range, and higher throughput applications in the IoT world. Inherent industry-grade security is essential in today's applications, a cryptographic accelerator is embedded.

BT840E with an u.FL connector for external antenna. FCC certified with ANT060, a 6 dBi antenna. Bluetooth range between two modules is 3400 meters at 125 Kbps.

BT840 is a lower cost, $6.88 at 1-pcs, smaller size, shorter range alternative of BT840F.

A host PCB designed for BT840F can use BT840 or BT840E without hardware or firmware change.

To reduce time to market, the following Open source nRF52840 products are available:

• USB840F: nRF52840 USB Dongle, pre-certified and in market ready enclosure.

• BWG840F: BLE 5, Thread, Zigbee to WiFi gateway.

• BLG840F: BLE 5, Thread, Zigbee to LTE gateway.

• SE840F: Bluetooth temperature, humidity sensors.

• LEWR840E6P: IP65 BLE-LoRa to LTE-WiFI-PoE Ethernet gateway.

• SL840F6: IP65 LTE-BLE sensor supporting up to 30 amp-hours batteries.

• LN60G840F: LTE-Bluetooth combo module for M.2 connector.

• M262840F: Bluetooth-LoRa combo module for M.2 connector.

BT840F, Easy Upgrade or Cost Reduction

All BT Series modules have compatible footprints.

BT840F Main Features:

• MCU: Cortex M4F at 64 MHz

• Memories: 1MB flash and 256 KB RAM

• FCC certified max. TX power: +8.49 dBm. BLE range is 2300 meters at 125 Kbps.

Feature Upgradeable, BT40F

• Dual Core Cortex M33, application core up to 128 MHz.

• Application core memories: 1MB flash and 256KB RAM.

• Network core memories: 256 KB flash and 64 KB RAM.

Bluetooth Range Upgradeable, BT840N/NE

• BT840N with nRF21540 PA, +19.1 dBm TX power.

• BT840NE with both integrated antenna and u.FL for a 6 dBi external antenna.

Cost Reduction

• BT832A, an nRF52810 module, range 100 meters.

• BT832, an nRF52832 module, range 100 meters.

• BT840, an nRF52840 module, range 100 meters.

Bluetooth 5 Specifications

Three key features of Bluetooth 5 specs for Bluetooth 5 products:

1. 2X bandwidth to support 2Mbps data rate.

2. 4X range to provide coverage of an entire home or building.

3. 8X broadcasting message length from 31 bytes to 255 bytes.

Nordic nRF52832 SoC supports 2 Mbps data rate and firmware upgrade with new SoftDevices can transmit broadcasting messages up to 255-bytes long. All BlueNor modules, BC832, BT832, BT832F, and BT832X support these two Bluetooth 5 specifications.

Bluetooth SIG CORE_v5.0 LE CODED PHY uses FEC (Forward Error Correction) codes, 8 or 2 symbols to represent 1 data bit, and 1 M Symbols per second (MSps) transmission rate. Effectively, the maximum data rate is 125 kbps when 8 symbols are used. This FEC coding allows receivers to receive much weaker signals and to increase range by 4 times in theory.

Typical BLE 4.2 range is about 50 meters. This CODED-PHY can quadruple the range to about 200 meters at reduced data rate of 125 kbps.

BlueNor BT832F uses a superior PCB trace antenna to increase Bluetooth range to 650 meters between 2 modules. If you are developing a product meeting Bluetooth 5 specifications, BT832F is a good, lower cost alternative. 

BT840F is required if your Bluetooth 5 devices are used in mesh networks with many nodes for desirable performance. Security is mandatory in Bluetooth mesh networks. By offloading decryption, encryption, and authentication works to CryptoCell-310, BT840F can deliver high performance in Bluetooth mesh networks.

Security is Mandatory in Bluetooth 5 Mesh Networks

Mesh network, individual applications, and Bluetooth 5 devices are all secure.  This cannot be switched off or reduced in anyway.

• All mesh messages are encrypted and authenticated.

• Network security, application security, and device security are addressed independently.

• Security keys can be changed during the life of the mesh network via a Key Refresh procedure.

• Message obfuscation makes it difficult to track messages sent within the network providing a privacy mechanism to make it difficult to track nodes.

• Mesh security protects the network against replay attacks.

• The process by which devices are added to the mesh network to become nodes, is itself a secure process.

• Nodes can be removed from network securely, in a way which prevents trashcan attacks.

Three security keys provide security to different aspects of the mesh and achieve a critical capability in mesh security, that of "separation of concerns".

• NetKey (network key) possessed by all nodes. It allows a node to decrypt and authenticate up to the Network Layer. A Relay node uses NetKey to decrypt and authenticate messages before relaying.

• AppKey (application key). Application data for specific application can only be decrypted by nodes possess the right AppKey.

• DevKey (device key) is unique to each node. It is used for secure communication with the Provisioner during provisioning process.

In a mesh network with many nodes, a lot of processing power is required for decryption and authentication at least for the Relay nodes and possibly for other nodes. BT840F using nRF52840 is embedded with an ARM CryptoCell-310 cryptographic co-processor. To achieve acceptable mesh network performance, BT840F should be used in mesh networks with many nodes.

CryptoCell-310 provides the following key features:

• Cryptographic hardware engines, providing CPU host offloading, operation acceleration and power consumption reduction.

• Cryptography and security middleware services

• Platform Security building blocks libraries

• Device Life-Cycle-State management

• Key Management infrastructure

• Secure Boot.

By offloading decryption, encryption, and authentication works to CryptoCell-310, BT840F can deliver high performance in Bluetooth mesh networks.

BT840F Specifications

• Nordic nRF52840 QIAA with ARM Cortex M4F

• ARM CryptoCell-310 cryptographic co-processor

• 1MB flash, 256 KB RAM

• Complete RF solution with integrated antenna

• Multiple protocols: BLE, ANT, Thread, Zigbee

• NFC-A tag interface for Out Of Band pairing

• 128-bit AES HW encryption

• Serial Wire Debug (SWD)

• Nordic SoftDevice Ready

• Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware update

48 GPIOs, firmware configurable, Peripherals

• 12 bit/200KSps ADC

• 3x SPI Master/Slave, 8 Mbps

• 2x 2-wireMaster/Slave, I2C compatible

• UART

• Quadrature Demodulator (QDEC)

• I2S audio interface

• Digital microphone interface

• Peripherals: Temperature sensor, general comparator, Low power comparator, Random Number Generator

• 20 channel CPU independent Programmable Peripheral Interconnect (PPI)

• 5 x 32 bits, 3 x 24 bits Real Time Counters (RTC)

Power:

• Operation voltage: 1.7V to 5.5V

Miscellaneous

• Operation Temperature: -40°C to +85°C

• Integrated shield to resist EMI

• Sizes: 15.0x20.8x1.9mm

• Availability: Production. Approtect version BT840-p, BT840F-p and BT840E-p production begins in March 2023. For more information and to order free approtect module samples.

Bluetooth Range Measurements

Bluetooth ranges between 2 modules are measured with antenna pointing to sky, one antenna is rotated by 30 degrees after each measurement, average of 12 measurements for each test condition.

Low multiple path interference.

• TX= +8 dBm, 1000 meters at 1 Mbps. Antenna is 5.2 meters and 4.2 meters above ground, respectively.

• TX= +8 dBm, 2300 meters at 125 Kbps. Both antennas are 5.2 meters above ground.

At typical height of thermostat, antenna 1.52 meters (5 feet) above ground.

• TX= +8 dBm, 640 meters at 125 Kbps.

• TX= +8 dBm, 390 meters at 1 Mbps.

Note: Range of BT832X is measured with antenna at 2.1 meters above ground. With 1170 meter range, BT832X Bluetooth signals can penetrate more walls than BT840F with 2300 meter range at 5.2 meter height. Multiple path interference can reduce range significantly.

Certifications for Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4

• FCC ID: X8WBT840F

• IC (Industrial Canada) ID: 4100A-BT840F

• Europe: Compliant

• Australia and New Zealand: RCM compliant

• Japan: TELEC 201-190710/00

• Korea KCC: R-C-F8A-BT840

• Taiwan NCC: NCC-RCB-AN

• Brazil ANTEL: 03583-22-14656

• QDID: 108621