nRF5340 Audio Development Kit

Nordic Semiconductor's nRF5340 Audio DK is a development kit for Bluetooth LE audio applications. It contains everything needed to get started with development. The DK includes the nRF5340 system-on-chip (SoC) and two 3.5 mm audio jacks for line-in and for headphones out. The kit can be used in different configurations. It can function as a USB dongle to output or receive audio data from or to a connected PC. It can act as a headset with a microphone and speaker. It can also serve as an earbud in true wireless stereo (TWS) applications or a broadcast receiver. For most use-cases, Nordic Semiconductor recommends using two or more DKs.

The DK supports applications with Nordic's powerful nRF5340 SoC and Cirrus Logic’s CS47L63 high-performance low-power audio DSP. The CS47L63’s high-performance DAC and differential output driver are optimized for a direct connection to the external headphone load. It is perfect for earbuds with mono-only and direct speaker output.

Five user-programmable buttons and LEDs allow easy input and output to and from the nRF5340 SoC. An SD-card holder provides possibilities for extra storage. A J4 connector at the bottom of the DK can connect an NFC antenna. A SEGGER J-Link debugger is on the board, enabling programming and debugging of both the nRF5340 SoC and the CS47L63. Analog and digital interfaces and GPIOs are available via PCB connectors. The nRF5340 Audio DK is powered via USB and has a battery connector for a Li-Ion/Li-Po battery. The current consumption can be measured by using the dedicated current measurement pins. Nordic recommends using their Power Profiler Kit II for that. The low complexity communications codec (LC3) uses about half the data for even higher audio quality than Classic Audio's low complexity sub-band codec (SBC). This comes with the need for more computing power for encoding and decoding.

The nRF5340 SoC is at the core of the nRF5340 Audio DK. It combines a high-performance application processor with a fully programmable, ultra-low-power network processor. It can handle the demanding encoding and decoding of the LC3 besides the Bluetooth LE communication. The 128 MHz Arm® Cortex®-M33 application processor has 1 MB Flash and 512 KB of RAM, while the 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 network processor has 256 KB Flash and 64 KB RAM. It is the ideal choice for Bluetooth LE Audio applications

The nPM1100 is a power management IC with a highly efficient configurable buck regulator. It has an integrated battery charger with a charge current from 20 mA to 400 mA. The PMIC’s extremely small form-factor makes it ideal for size-constrained applications like truly wireless earbuds. The nRF Connect SDK is Nordic’s software development kit for the nRF5340 SoC and has board support for the nRF5340 Audio DK. It supports the development of Bluetooth LE Audio, Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, and other applications. It integrates the Zephyr RTOS, protocol stacks, samples, hardware drivers, and much more. nRF Connect SDK also supports the nRF9160, Nordic's LTE-M/NB IoT/GNSS SiP, and the nRF52 Series. It is a common platform for both cellular IoT and short-range development.