Emcraft Thingy-9151-Lite Platform Data Sheet

Owned by Natalia Sofronova
Last updated: Apr 17, 2024 by Debbie Nail Meyer
4 min read

1. Purpose

This data sheet provides a high-level overview of the Emcraft Thingy-9151-Lite hardware and software platform.

NOTE: Any information presented herein is of a preliminary nature, subject to change by Emcraft without notice.

2. Thingy-9151-Lite Platform

The Emcraft Thingy-9151-Lite is a hardware and software platform centered around the new Nordic nRF9151 System-in-Package (SiP). The Nordic nRF9151 was specifically designed for compact, low-power cellular IoT applications, providing advanced processing capabilities, robust security features and support for 3GPP release 14 LTE-M/NB-IoT.

In addition to the nRF9151, the Thingy-9151-Lite platform includes an optional Nordic nRF5340 System-on-Chip (SoC) with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and USB gadget functions. When the nRF5340 is included, a dedicated inter-processor communication interface provides data exchange and health checks between the nRF9151 and the nRF5340 microcontrollers.

The Emcraft Thingy-9151-Lite adds advanced power controls with the Nordic nPM1300 power management IC (PMIC) device. Working with the nRF9151, the nPM1300 PMIC serves as battery controller for the rechargeable 3.7V Li-Poly battery.

The platform provides an I/O extension interface, supporting various I/O add-on functions.

The platform provides a debug interface, allowing access to the Zephyr serial consoles from a development host as well as integration with the host-side development IDE with advanced debug capabilities.

3. Platform Components

The Thingy-9151-Lite platform is comprised of the following key components:

  • Hardware reference design, ready for integration into customer’s designs based on the nRF9151

  • Thingy-9151-Lite Starter Kit, which provides a reference platform for initial software development and prototyping

  • Zephyr OS BSP (board support package), providing off the shelf-support RTOS support, with advanced software capabilities, for the Thingy-9151-Lite hardware platform and Starter Kit

  • Integration with the host-side development IDE

  • Emcraft’s Consulting Team supports the Thingy-9151-Lite platform with customization services and porting support to customer designs.

4. High-Level Block Diagram

The following is a high-level block diagram of the Emcraft Thingy-9151-Lite platform:

image-20240405-144423.png

 

5. Feature List

The following is the high-level summary of key features available with the Emcraft Thingy-9151-Lite hardware platform:

  • The nRF9151 is the host MCU, with an integrated multimode modem supporting LTE-M, NB-IoT and GPS/GNSS. The cellular connectivity is supported with a SIM card (Nano/4FF SIM card slot, supporting (e)SIM) and an u.FL antenna). The nRF9151 integrates an SPI Flash (16MB) and I2C RTC.

  • The nRF5340 is the optional MCU, with embedded BLE, NFC, and USB gadget functionalities. The nRF5340 can also be used to offload support for additional I/O interfaces, as well as additional computational tasks from the host MCU.

  • When the nRF5340 is instantiated in a customer’s design, the two MCU’s communicate via an inter-processor communication interface, which includes:

    • 2 UART interfaces with flow control,

    • Several cross-MUC GPIO's.

  • The nPM1300 PMIC is connected to the nRF9151 via a dedicated I2C bus and GPIOs. Together with the host MCU, the PMIC serves as a battery controller for the Rechargeable 3.7V Li-Poly battery with 1350 mAh capacity. The USB Type-C interface provides the main power source as well as the source for battery charging. Both the nRF9151 and the nRF5340 can power cycle the entire system via a dedicated power switch, thus allowing a self-recovery mechanism for software. Additionally, the user can power cycle the system using the reset button. The power LED serves to indicate various power states.

  • The platform supports low-power mode where the Zephyr BSP brings the various platform components into appropriate low-power states, with ability to wake-up from various time- and I/O-based triggers. The kit provides a current measurement connector for measuring the power consumption of the following domains:

    • nPM1300 PMIC + nRF9151,

    • whole board.

  • The platform includes the I/O extension interface, comprised of the breadboard area (available for both the nRF9151 and nRF5340 MCUs) and two MikroE Click connectors (connected to the nRF9151), allowing additions of various off-the-shelf and custom Click cards for development of add-on I/O capabilities, including:

    • Various sensors, including: IMU, Temp and others

    • NFC reader

    • eInk display

    • GPIO (LEDs, buttons)

    • Various radio interfaces, including: Wi-Fi, BT and others

    • Emcraft TPM card, allowing for hardware-assisted data encryption and secure boot.

  • The platform includes the debug interface, comprised of:

    • In addition to providing a power option, the USB Type-C interface is used to bridge two UART serial consoles, one for the nRF9151 and one for the nRF5340 MCU, via a 2-channel USB-UART bridge

    • Two SWD connectors for programming and debugging of nRF9151 and nRF5340 with the external J-Link probe. TBD: If possible, use an FTDI chip with 2 UART channels and 2 SWD channels.

  • The EmCraft Thingy-9151-Lite platform SDK provides device level drivers, inter-processor communication primitives, an AI subsystem, basic system level services, OTA, data logging, filesystem, calendar, asynchrounous wakeup, battery charging and management and low-power operation support. The platform SDK will be expanded to support Matter, Zigbee, UWB, ROS2-bridging as well as interoperability with Emcraft smart cameras and robot brain designs, all as a comprehensive SDK. Customer specific firmware applications would be developed outside the scope of this product offering.