In August 2022, Nordic Semiconductor announced its first Wi-Fi product. The nRF7002 is a dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz) Wi-Fi 6 compatible companion IC. It does not have a general-purpose microcontroller built-in. Instead, Nordic intends for you to combine it with another microcontroller, like one of their nRF52 or nRF53-series system on chip (SoC).
During the component shortage, I got to know Raspberry Pi’s RP2040 microcontroller. It is a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ with about 262 kilobytes of RAM. The feature I like most is the programmable IO pins. These are small state machines that run independently of the Arm cores. They allow for some clever tricks. For example, I used them extensively on the Mega IIe project.
What does Silicon have to do with Social Media? Silicon’s Atomic Number is 14. Wait what? Oh… element14 is, basically, a social media site for electrical engineers, embedded designers, makers, and hobbyist. Forums, blogs, videos, and all kinds of resources from “celebrities” around the EE world.
It’s one of the most active communities and, in my opinion, one of the cleanest layouts. Over the past few months, I’ve been becoming more active there. If you’re there, check out my activity feed and add me as a contact! It’s a great way to stay in touch.
Note that I don’t have an affiliation with element14, other than being a member, just like you can be.
