Recently, Nordic Semiconductor (hereinafter referred to as Nordic) made a grand appearance at the 2025 Bluetooth Asia Conference, showcasing a number of cutting-edge Bluetooth technologies and applications such as Bluetooth channel sounding, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and tire pressure monitoring (TPMS) in medical, automotive electronics, and smart home.
On the day of the conference, Nordic accepted a media interview from the smart communication positioning circle and shared the latest progress of its low-power Bluetooth technology, as well as its diversified products and solutions in the fields of medical health, smart home, and industrial Internet of Things.
The new generation of nRF54L series supports Bluetooth channel sounding
As the world's leading low-power Bluetooth solution provider, the new wireless SoC product series consolidates Nordic's leading position in the field of low-power wireless technology. At the 2025 Bluetooth Asia Conference, the nRF54L series was the focus of Nordic's low-power Bluetooth solution.
It is understood that the nRF54L series consists of nRF54L15, nRF54L10 and nRF54L05. All wireless SoCs in this series integrate ultra-low power multi-protocol 2.4 GHz radio and MCU functions, equipped with a 128 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor and a comprehensive set of peripherals. The series also provides a variety of packaging and memory size options, using pin-compatible QFN packaging.
In 2024, after the Bluetooth Technology Alliance officially included Channel Sounding as part of Bluetooth 6.0, Nordic announced that its nRF54L and nRF54H series system-on-chips (SoCs) support this technology.
Damien Wong, sales director of Nordic Semiconductor Greater China, said that compared with the previous generation nRF52832, the nRF54L series has significantly improved resource utilization and cost efficiency, and reduced power consumption by 30%.
In addition, the newly added Bluetooth 6.0 channel sounding function further improves the performance of low-power Bluetooth (Bluetooth LE) devices in distance measurement and presence detection, while significantly enhancing technical flexibility and supporting centimeter-level high-precision positioning. This feature can be widely used in scenarios such as item search, asset tracking, inventory management, and pointing remote control, especially in automotive digital keys and smart door locks. It shows great potential.
It is worth noting that the single antenna solution adopted by the nRF54L series has more cost advantages. When combined with the Nordic distance toolbox (NDT) provided by Nordic, the phase ranging and RTT ranging toolkits can improve the accuracy and reliability of distance measurement, and provide safe distance detection for smart door locks and industrial monitoring.
Ai Minhua, Field Application Engineering Manager and Standards and Ecosystem Director of Nordic Semiconductor China, emphasized that when developing the nRF54L series, Nordic put security first, making it have secure boot, secure firmware update, secure storage, TrustZone, encryption accelerator with side channel leakage protection, and tampering detector. These features ensure that devices manufactured using the nRF54L series are safe and reliable and can resist various threats.
Promoting the construction of low-power satellite Internet of Things
In addition to low-power Bluetooth, Nordic also focused on displaying cellular technology solutions and low-power Wi-Fi solutions.
The nRF9151 cellular module launched by it is a highly integrated compact module that integrates LTE-M/NB-IoT, has a multi-mode modem, advanced processing capabilities and powerful security features, and can provide excellent performance and versatility.
Compared with previous generation products, nRF9151 not only reduces the footprint by 20%, making it the industry's lowest power and smallest cellular IoT module, but also adds support for Power Class 5 20dBm power. nRF9151 also supports non-terrestrial network (NTN) technology, which can provide reliable protection for IoT connections in remote areas, greatly expanding the coverage and flexibility of IoT applications.
In addition, Nordic also announced that it will cooperate with several satellite operators to jointly promote the commercialization of non-terrestrial network (NTN) technology, aiming to achieve global coverage without blind spots. Currently, Nordic has cooperated with Skylo, a low-orbit (LEO) satellite operator, and plans to expand to higher orbit solutions in the future to meet the needs of industrial and emergency communications.
For low-power Wi-Fi 6 applications, the nRF70 series is a Wi-Fi 6 collaborative IC that can be seamlessly integrated with Nordic's nRF91 series cellular SiP, providing developers with a powerful positioning solution that covers GNSS, cellular-based and SSID-based Wi-Fi positioning combinations, enriching the functionality and accuracy of location services.
Damien Wong, Nordic's sales director for Greater China, revealed that Nordic completed the acquisition of Atlazo last year to acquire its advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. In order to better meet edge computing needs, Nordic plans to integrate these technologies in the next generation of the nRF71 series. This move will not only expand Nordic's product capabilities, but also enhance its technology and business layout in various vertical markets, providing customers with more comprehensive solutions.
Mature and complete ecosystem and resource support
As a leader in wireless connectivity innovation, Nordic offers a comprehensive product portfolio covering technologies such as cellular IoT, low-power Bluetooth, Thread, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi, supplemented by fast technical support and customized services, to help developers and enterprises build low-power, high-performance connected devices for various scenarios.
Ai Minhua said: "The competitive advantage of Nordic's wireless solutions is not only reflected in our leading Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular technologies, but also in our mature and complete ecosystem. We provide a wealth of general software, development tools, cloud services and power management ICs, and have an industry-leading technical support team."
In addition, Nordic's technical community, developer academy and open technical documentation center also provide developers with all-round support. "Many customers have reported that choosing Nordic has helped them avoid detours, not only improving product performance, but also significantly accelerating the product launch process."
Among them, Nordic's nRF Cloud platform is an end-to-end cloud solution designed for IoT device management, data collection and analysis. The platform can be seamlessly integrated with Nordic hardware products to help developers monitor device status in real time, manage firmware updates, and visualize sensor data. nRF Cloud supports both cellular and short-range wireless connection devices, providing a unified and convenient management interface for various IoT applications, significantly improving development efficiency and device operation and maintenance capabilities.
nRF Connect SDK is Nordic's comprehensive software development kit that supports all its wireless SoCs and modules. It includes a rich set of integrated code libraries, protocol stacks, sample applications, and tools designed to speed up the development cycle. The SDK supports multiple wireless protocols such as Bluetooth LE, Thread, Zigbee, LTE-M, and NB-IoT, providing a unified environment for developers to build connected devices.
Whether it is smart home, wearable devices, industrial automation, or smart cities, Nordic is committed to providing efficient, flexible, and future-oriented wireless solutions. With leading technology, a comprehensive ecosystem, and continuous optimization of low-power performance, Nordic is helping global developers and companies accelerate innovation and build a smarter, more connected world.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
