Fanstel BlurNor BT840X User manual

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BluNor BT840X is a powerful, highly flexible, ultra low power Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) using Nordic
nRF52840 SoC. With an ARMCortexTM M4F MCU, available 1MB flash, 256KB RAM, embedded 2.4GHz multi-
protocol transceiver, and an integrated PCB trace antenna or u.FL connector for an external antenna. A power
amplifier is integrated in BT840X and BT840XE to increase Bluetooth range. It allows faster time to market with
reduced development cost.
Bluetooth ranges are measured in environments with Low Multiple Path Interference (LMPI) and antenna at 5
feet (1.52 meters), typical height of thermostat in the USA. Ranges for LMPI, correlating to actual link budget,
indicates the Bluetooth signal strength for penetrating walls in buildings.
Specifications:
nRF52840 QIAA, ARM Cortex M4F, 64 MHz
ARM® TrustZone® Cryptocell-310 co-processor
Complete RF solution with integrated antenna
BLE 5 data rate: 2Mbps, 1Mbps, 500kbps,
125kbps.
IEEE 802.15.4 Thread and Zigbee data rate: 250
Kbps
2.4 GHz proprietary data rate: 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps
Integrated DC-DC converter, inductors on board.
Direct powered by Lithium batteries or USB supply
(up to 5.5V)
Serial Wire Debug (SWD)
Nordic SoftDevice Ready
Over-the-Air (OTA) firmware update
Flash/RAM: 1MB/256KB.
48 General purpose I/O pins
USB 2.0 full speed (12 Mbps) controller
QSPI 32 MHz interface
High speed 32 MHz SPI
Programmable peripheral interconnect (PPI)
12 bit/200 Ksps ADC, 8 configurable channels with
programmable gain
64 level comparator
15 level comparator with wake-up from OFF mode
Temperature sensor
4x4-channel pulse width modulator (PWM)
Audio peripherals: I2S, digital microphone interface
(PDM)
5 x 32 bit timers with counter mode
Up to 4x SPI masters/3x SPI slaves
Up to 2x I2C compatible 2-wire masters/slaves
2x UART (CTS/RTS)
Quadrature Demodulator (QDEC)
3x real time counters (RTC)
128-bit AES HW encryption
SoC Receiver Sensitivity: -96 dBm at 1Mbps
SoC TX power: programmable +8dBm to -20dBm.
Up to +6 dBi antenna gain.
Hybrid pins: 16 castellated and 45 LGA.
Integrated PCB trace antenna or u.FL connector
Operation voltage: 1.7V to 3.6V
Operation temperature: -40 °C to +8 5 ° C
QDID: 108621
Applications
Secure IoT
Beacons/Proximity
Connected appliances
Lighting products
Sensors
Home and building automation
Model Summaries
module BT840X BT840XE
SoC nRF52840-QIAA nRF52840-QIAA
Size 15x20.8x1.9mm 15x20.8x1.9mm
BT Antenna PCB trace + PA PA + u.FL
32.768 sleep crystal Integrated Integrated
BT range,1 Mbps, LMPI
BT range, 1Mbps, 1.52m
BT range, 125 Kbps, LMPI.
BT range, 125 kBps, 1.52m
FCC ID Pending Pending
IC ID Pending Pending

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CE
Availability Sample Sample
Table Of Contents
1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................................4
BT840X Block Diagram........................................................................................................................................4
BT840X ................................................................................................................................................................4
BT840XE..............................................................................................................................................................5
2. Codes Development Using Nordic Tools............................................................................................................6
Easy, fast and safe code development ...............................................................................................................6
Over-The-Air DFU................................................................................................................................................6
SoftDevices..........................................................................................................................................................6
Development Tools..............................................................................................................................................6
3. Product Descriptions............................................................................................................................................7
Block Diagram of nRF52840................................................................................................................................8
ARM Trustzone CryptoCell 310...........................................................................................................................9
Mechanical Drawings.........................................................................................................................................12
Pin Assignments of BT840X..............................................................................................................................13
Pin Function .......................................................................................................................................................16
Mounting BT840X on the Host PCB..................................................................................................................17
Host Board Design for Low Cost or Long Range..............................................................................................18
Control Skyworks Power Amplifier ....................................................................................................................19
4. Bluetooth Range Measurements.......................................................................................................................22
5. AT Commands...................................................................................................................................................23
6. BT840X Evaluation Board .................................................................................................................................23
Nordic Development Tools ................................................................................................................................24
Android OS Apps ...............................................................................................................................................25
iOS Apps............................................................................................................................................................25
BT840X V4 EvaluationBoard Schematics.........................................................................................................25
Suggestion for Battery Power Application.........................................................................................................26
7. Miscellaneous ....................................................................................................................................................27
Soldering Temperature-Time Profile for Re-Flow Soldering.............................................................................27
Cautions, Design Notes, and Installation Notes................................................................................................27
Packaging...........................................................................................................................................................30
FCC Label..........................................................................................................................................................30
Revision History.....................................................................................................................................................31
8. Contact Us .........................................................................................................................................................32

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1. Introduction
BluNor BT840X Series are powerful, highly flexible, ultra low power wireless modules using Nordic nRF52840
SoCs. With an ARMCortex
TM
M4F MCU, 1MB flash, 256KB RAM, embedded 2.4GHz multi-protocol
transceiver, and an integrated antenna, it allows faster time to market with reduced development cost.
The following is a block diagram of BT840X. Antenna circuit and main clock are integrated. All 48 GPIOs of
nRF52840 can be accessed from main board. For lower power consumption at idle state, a 32.768 kHz crystal
can be added on the host board.
BT840X Block Diagram
BlurNor BT840X is a sister module of BT832F. The physical size is the same. There are 21 additional LGA pins
for additional GPIOs provided by nRF52840.
There are 2 modules in the BT840X Series.
BT840X
•Uses an nRF52840 QIAA with Cortex M4F MCU
•1MB flash, 256 KB RAM
•integrated SKY66112 power amplifier
•Integrated 32.768 KHz sleep crystal
•Integrated PCB trace antenna

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•Size: 15x28x1.9mm.
BT840XE
•Uses an nRF52840 QIAA with Cortex M4F MCU
•1MB flash, 256 KB RAM
•Integrated SKY66112 power amplifier.
•Integrated 32.768 KHz sleep crystal.
•An u.FL connector for external antenna.
•Size: 15x28x1.9mm.

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2. Codes Development Using Nordic Tools
Development tools by Nordic and other third party development tools recommended by Nordic should be
used .
Easy, fast and safe code development
Nordic development environment for nRF52840 offers a clean separation between application code
development and embedded protocol stacks. This means compile, link and run time dependencies with the
embedded stack and associated debugging challenges are removed. The Bluetooth low energy and ANT stack
is a pre-compiled binary, leaving application code to be compiled stand-alone. The embedded stack interface
uses an asynchronous and event driven model removing the need for RTOS frameworks.
Over-The-Air DFU
The nRF52840 is supported by an Over-The-Air Device Firmware Upgrade (OTA DFU) feature. This allows for
in the field updates of application software and SoftDevice.
SoftDevices
The Nordic protocol stacks are known as SoftDevices and complement the nRF52 Series SoCs. All nRF52 Series are
programmable with software stacks from Nordic. This bring maximum flexibility to application development and allows
the latest stack version to be programmed into the SoC.
SoftDevices available from Nordic:
S140: Bluetooth low energy concurrent central/peripheral/observer/broadcaster stack.
Development Tools
Nordic Semiconductor provides a complete range of hardware and software development tools for the nRF52 Series
devices. nRF52 DK board is recommended for firmware development.
Nordic software development tools can be downloaded from the following webpage.
http://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=/com.nordic.infocenter.nrf52/dita/nrf52/development/nrf52_dev_kit.htm
l&cp=1_1

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3. Product Descriptions
Brief description of nRF52840 SoC is provided. For full description of the SoC, please download from Nordic
Semiconductor website.
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Bluetooth-low-energy
Block Diagram of nRF52840

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The following is a block diagram of Nordic nRF52840 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) SoC. Arrows with white
heads indicate signals that share physical pins with other signals.
The 32 bit ARM Cortex M4F MCU with hardware supports for DSP instructions and floating point operations,
code density and execution speed are higher than other Cortex M MCU. The Programmable Peripheral
Interconnect (PPI) system provides a 20-channel bus for direct and autonomous system peripheral
communication without CPU intervention. This brings predictable latency times for peripheral to peripheral
interaction and power saving benefits associated with leaving CPU idle. The device has 2 global power modes

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ON/OFF, but all system blocks and peripherals have individual power management control which allows for an
automatic switching RUN/IDLE for system blocks based only on those required/not required to achieve
particular tasks.
The radio supports Bluetooth low energy and ANT. Output power is scalable from a maximum of +8dBm down
to -20 dBm in 4dB steps. Sensitivity is increased to -96 dBm to -89 dBm, depending on data rate. Sensitivity for
BLE is -96 dBm, and -92.5 dBm for ANT.
ARM Trustzone CryptoCell 310
ARM® TrustZone® CryptoCell-310co-processor is a security subsystem which provides Root of Trust (RoT) and
cryptographic services for a device. CryptoCell services are available to the application through a software library API, not
a hardware register interface.
The following cryptographic features are provided.
•FIPS-140-2 certified True Random Number Generator (TRNG)

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•RSA asymmetric encryption
Up to 2048 bit key size
PKCS#1 v2.1/v1.5
Optional CRT support
•Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC)
NIST FIPS 186-4 recommended curves using pseudo-random parameters, up to 521 bits:
➢Prime field: P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, P-521
SEC 2 recommended curves using pseudo-random parameters, up to 521 bits:
➢Prime field: P-160, P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, P-521
Koblitz curves using fixed parameters, up to 256 bits:
➢Prime field: P-160, P-192, P-224, P-256
Edwards/Montgomery curves:
➢Ed25519, Curve 25519
ECDH/ECDSA support
•Secure remote password protocol (SRP)
Up to 3072 bit operations
•Hashing functions
SHA-1, SHA-2 up to 256 bit size
keyed-hash message authentication code (HMAC)
•AES symmetric encryption
General purpose AES engine (encrypt/decrypt, sign/verify)
128 bit key size
Supported encryption modes: ECB, CBC, CMAC/CBC-MAC, CTR, CCM/CCM*.
•ChaCha20/Poly1305 symmetric encryption
Supported keyed size: 128 and 256 bits
Authenticated encryption with associated data (AEAD) mode

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Mechanical Drawings
The followings are mechanical drawings of BT840X and BT832XE. The physical sizes of both are the same,
15x20.8x1.9mm. Except the 19 pins in solid black dots, BT840X and BT832XE is hardware pin to pin
compatible. Firmware configuration is required to perform the same function.
Two types of pins are available to meet different application requirements.
•16 castellated pins for application needing limited number of IOs. SMT equipment is not required for
soldering castellated pins.
BT840X and BT840XE mechanical drawings

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Pin Assignments of BT840X
The followings are BT840X pin assignment. Pin functions are in a table in next section. Please refer to Nordic
nRF52840 Product Specifications for detailed descriptions and features supported.
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/nRF52840
BT840X pins is a super set of that of BT832F. A PCB developed for BT832 Series can be used for BT840X
Series and vice versa.
BT832F pin assignments.

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BT840X pin assignments
BT840X 52840 BT832 52832
pin# pin# pin name pin# pin# pin name Descriptions
1 G1 P0.26/SDA 1 38 P0.26 GPIO, configured as I2C SDA on EV-BT840
2 H2 P0.27/SCL 2 39 P0.27 GPIO, configured as I2C SCL on EV-BT840
3 D2 P0.00/XL1 3 2P0.00/XL1 GPIO, connection for 32.768kHz crystal
4 F2 P0.01/XL2 4 3P0.01/XL2 GPIO, connection for 32.768kHz crystal
5 A12 P0.02/AIN0 5 4P0.02/AIN0 GPIO, Analog input
6 B13 P0.03/AIN1 6 5P0.03/AIN1 GPIO, Analog input
7 L24 P0.09 7 11 P0.09 GPIO
8 J24 P0.10 8 12 P0.10 GPIO
9 B1 VDD 9 13 VDD DC supply 1.7V to 3.6V
10 B7 GND 10 45 VSS Ground
11 T2 P0.11 11 16 P0.13 GPIO
12 AD22 P1.00 12 21 P0.18 GPIO
13 AD8 P0.13 13 23 P0.20 GPIO
14 AC13 P0.18/RESET 14 24 P0.21/RESET GPIO, configurable as RESET pin
15 AA24 SWDCLK 15 25 SWDCLK Serial Wire Debug clock input
16 AC24 SWDIO 16 26 SWDIO Serial Wire Debug I/O

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Z0 B19 P1.11 GPIO
Z1 B17 P1.12 GPIO
Z2 A16 P1.13 GPIO
Z3 B15 P1.14 GPIO
Z4 A14 P1.15 GPIO
Z5 A20 P1.10 GPIO
Z6 R24 P1.06 GPIO
A0 GND A0 45 VSS Ground
A1 B11 P0.28/AIN4 A1 40 P0.28/AIN4 GPIO, Analog input
A2 A10 P0.29/AIN5 A2 41 P0.29/AIN5 GPIO, Analog input
A3 J1 P0.04/AIN2 A3 6P0.04/AIN2 GPIO, Analog input
A4 K2 P0.05/AIN3 A4 7P0.05/AIN3 GPIO, Analog input
A5 M2 P0.07 A5 9P0.07 GPIO
A6 P2 P1.08 GPIO
B0 GND B0 45 VSS Ground
B1 AC21 P0.25 B1 37 P0.25 GPIO
B2 B9 P0.30/AIN6 B2 42 P0.30 GPIO
B3 A8 P0.31/AIN7 B3 43 P0.31 GPIO
B4 L1 P0.06 B4 8P0.06 GPIO, NC for BT840X, BT840XE, PA control
B5 N1 P0.08 B5 10 P0.08 GPIO, NC for BT840X, BT840XE, PA control
B6 V23 P1.03 GPIO
C0 GND C0 45 VSS Ground
C1 AD20 P0.24 C1 29 P0.24 GPIO
C2 AD18 P0.22 C2 27 P0.22 GPIO
C3 AD12 P0.17 C3 20 P0.17 GPIO, NC for BT840X,BT840XE, PA control
C4 AD10 P0.15 C4 18 P0.15 GPIO
C5 W24 P1.02 C5 15 P0.12 GPIO
C6 U24 P1.04 GPIO
D0 GND D0 45 VSS Ground
D1 AC19 P0.23 D1 28 P0.23 GPIO
D2 AC15 P0.19 D2 22 P0.19 GPIO, NC for BT840 X,BT840XE, PA control
D3 AC11 P0.16 D3 19 P0.16 GPIO
D4 AC9 P0.14 D4 17 P0.14 GPIO
D5 Y23 P1.01 D5 14 P0.11 GPIO
D6 T23 P1.05 GPIO
E0 P23 P1.07 GPIO
E1 AD16 P0.20 GPIO
E2 AC17 P0.21 GPIO
E3 R1 P1.09 GPIO
E4 AD6 D+ USB D+

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E5 AD4 D- USB D-
E6 U1 P0.12 GPIO
F0 Ground pad
F1 Ground pad
F2 Ground pad
F3 Ground pad
F4 Y2 VDDH High Voltage Power Supply
F5 AB2 DCCH DC to DC converter output
F6 AD2 VBUS 5V DC power for USB 3.3V regulator
Pin Function

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Mounting BT840X on the Host PCB
The following figure shows recommended mounting of BT840X module on the host PCB.
•For the best Bluetooth range performance, the antenna area of module shall extend 9.8 mm outside the
edge of host PCB board, or 9.8 mm outside the edge of a ground plane.
•The next choice is to place a module on a corner of host PCB, the antenna area shall extend 9.8 mm from
the edge of ground plane. Ground plane shall be at least 5 mm from the edge of the antenna area of
module.
•We don’t recommend mounting BT840X module in the middle of a host PCB.
For the best Bluetooth range performance, keep all external metal at least 30mm from the antenna area.

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Host Board Design for Low Cost or Long Range
On nRF52 series SoCs, Nordic offers various memory options and protocol supports. Fanstel offers various
antenna and power amplifier options. A host board can be designed to accommodate these nRF52 modules.
Our suggestions for host PCB design:
If your main goal is minimum PCB cost,
•use a 2-sided PCB.
•Use library component from EV BT832 Gerber files, can be downloaded from
http://www.fanstel.com/download-document/.It has 16 castellated pins plus 24 LGA pins. BT840X
library component can be used. However, signal routing can be difficult on a 2-sided PCB.
•Be sure of no metal contact in the area of 21 additional BT840X pins.
•BT840X can be mounted on a BT832 pad.
If you main goal is maximum wireless range,
•use a 4 or more layers PCB.
•Use library component from EV BT840X V4 or newer Gerber files, can be downloaded from
http://www.fanstel.com/download-document/.It has 16 castellated pins plus 45 LGA pins.
•As much ground plane under BT840X, on top side of host PCB as possible. Use EV BT840X V4
Gerber files as an example.
•If your products may need wireless range of 1350 meters or more, allocate physical space for a
15x28x1.9mm module. This larger module size is required to accommodate Skyworks SKY66112
power amplifier.
•Don’t use P0.06 (BT840X pin B4), P0.17 (BT840X pin C3), and P0.19 (BT840X pin D2) on the host
board. These pins are used to control SKY66112 power amplifier in BT832X, BT832XE, BT840X and
BT840XE.

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Control Skyworks Power Amplifier
BT840X uses SKYWORKS SKY66112-11 power amplifier. The connection diagram with control signal pins is
below.
A firmware configuration example to contol Skyworks SKY66112 power amplifier is below. This firmware file,
SKY66112_PAconfig.txt can be downloaded from http://www.fanstel.com/download-document/.
//PCA10040.h
//set the clock
#define NRF_CLOCK_LFCLKSRC {.source = NRF_CLOCK_LF_SRC_SYNTH, \
.rc_ctiv = 0, \
.rc_temp_ctiv = 0, \
.xtal_accuracy = NRF_CLOCK_LF_XTAL_ACCURACY_250_PPM}

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//main.c
//config the PA/LNA
#ifdef APP_PA_LAN
#define APP_PA_PIN 17
#define APP_LNA_PIN 19
#define APP_CPS_PIN 6
#define APP_AMP_PPI_CH_ID_SET 0
#define APP_AMP_PPI_CH_ID_CLR 1
#define APP_AMP_GPIOTE_CH_ID 0
static void pa_lna_setup(void)
{
uint32_t err_code;
nrf_gpio_cfg_output(APP_CPS_PIN);
nrf_gpio_pin_clear(APP_CPS_PIN); //enable
nrf_gpio_cfg_output(APP_PA_PIN);
nrf_gpio_pin_clear(APP_PA_PIN); //
nrf_gpio_cfg_output(APP_LNA_PIN);
nrf_gpio_pin_clear(APP_LNA_PIN); //
static ble_opt_t pa_lna_opts = {
.common_opt = {
.pa_lna = {