Electronica 2022: Nordic Demo the New nRF7002 Wifi 6 IC

At Electronica 2022, we saw the first in-person demo of the new nRF7002 Wifi 6 chip. It's the first time Nordic Semiconductor has released hardware for Wifi connectivity, and it looks like it's going to be a powerful connectivity module for a variety of tasks. The dual-band chip runs at 2.4 and 5 GHz and utilizes Wifi 6's super fast Target Wake times, allowing Wifi connectivity that consumes much less power than previous generations.

We caught up with Ioannis Glaropoulos, Technical Product Manager at Nordic Semiconductor, to talk about the new nRF7002 Wifi 6 IC (which I wrongly call an SoC in the video):

The chip, announced in August 2022, will soon be available with full development kits and software development tools, but there is already a developer page for the preview development kit that was on show at Electronica, with code samples including Matter over WiFi.

One interesting aspect of this IC is that while it is undoubtedly easier to use it in conjunction with other Nordic Semiconductor SoCs, it can work as a connectivity coprocessor for a huge range of microcontrollers and processors. It's early days yet, but the potential for incredibly low-powered EdgeAI devices which can also connect to the wider web at a low energy cost is exciting!

To find out more, head to the Nordic Semiconductor Wifi product page, or read the initial nRF7002 announcement blog post.