Nordic's nRF71 Series combines Wi-Fi, Thread and edge AI on one chip

Nordic Semiconductor has announced the nRF71 Series, a family of system-on-chip devices that combine Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread and on-device AI inference on a single die. The company says the series delivers up to 20 times lower standby power usage than its current-generation nRF70 Series Wi-Fi products, a figure attributed to Nordic and not independently verified.

The first two parts are the nRF7120 and nRF7120E. The nRF7120 supports dual-band Wi-Fi 6, while the nRF7120E adds tri-band Wi-Fi 6E along with an integrated Axon Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for hardware-accelerated machine learning. Both devices include 4 MB of on-chip non-volatile memory and 1 MB of user-accessible RAM.

Architecture: two independent radios

The nRF71 Series uses two separate RF and processing blocks: a Wi-Fi radio and a 2.4 GHz multiprotocol radio derived from Nordic's latest nRF54 Series wireless SoCs. According to Nordic, both radios can receive simultaneously, allowing a device to maintain a Wi-Fi connection to the cloud while listening for Bluetooth LE or Thread traffic without either protocol having to wait for the other.

On-chip AI inference

Nordic states that the Axon NPU on the nRF7120E runs machine learning models 10 to 17 times faster than the 256 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor alone, figures again sourced from the company. Running inference on the SoC removes the need for an external AI processor, which Nordic says reduces component count. The company cites keyword spotting, anomaly detection and image classification as workloads it considers practical on battery-powered devices using the nRF71 Series. For devices without the Axon NPU, Nordic's Neuton software is positioned for building small AI models that run on the processor alone, with over-the-air model updates available through Nordic's nRF Cloud service.

Nordic frames the series as enabling applications such as battery-powered smart home hubs, Matter bridges, Thread border routers, smart locks, security panels, wearables and industrial sensors that require Wi-Fi, Thread and Bluetooth LE on one chip, alongside edge AI.

Status

Nordic says the nRF71 Series is now sampling with selected customers, with developers directed to contact local Nordic sales representatives for availability. The series is also due to be shown, including a Nordic-branded module, on the company's stand at Electronica.