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Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

nordicsemi.com

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Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#2
Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#3

Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

Looks like it switches different ranges. ST makes something similar that has similar dynamic range without switching. They use analog circuitry (op amps and junk) to compensate for the resistor drop, so the path is uninterrupted. I've had systems where the auto-ranging on a bench meter is enough to cause it to reset. I can't find a schematic for the PPKII (haven't looked too hard though) but if it's actually switching the supply, that can cause issues to devices downstream. Especially if that switching causes a voltage drop change.

Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#4

Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

> Nordic makes some good products

and godawful software. the SDK for their NRF52/3/4 is pure madness, i haven't even managed to set up the toolchain, documentation always out of date. They used to have another toolchain for the older parts, but good luck setting it up now.

Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#5
post #3

Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

Looks like it switches different ranges. ST makes something similar that has similar dynamic range without switching. They use analog circuitry (op amps and junk) to compensate for the resistor drop, so the path is uninterrupted. I've had systems where the auto-ranging on a bench meter is enough to cause it to reset. I can't find a schematic for the PPKII (haven't looked too hard though) but if it's actually switchin…

It switches the detection range, but not the actual power supply. You can ramp from Schematics: https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/Pow...

Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#6

Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

The PPK2 is one of the best pieces of kit I have and it'd be worth it at 5x the price.

There's an unofficial Python library as well. I have power consumption tests running as part of my automated firmware test suite.

Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#7

Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

> Nordic makes some good products and godawful software. the SDK for their NRF52/3/4 is pure madness, i haven't even managed to set up the toolchain, documentation always out of date. They used to have another toolchain for the older parts, but good luck setting it up now.

Segger Embedded Studio is a complete solution. One installer. You might need to pick an older version to go with an old SDK version, but its very straightforward.

Re: Nordic Semiconductor Acquires Memfault

#9

Nordic makes some good products. When I was doing hardware design for a product that uses a battery my options for power profiling were either not to do it or spend some eye watering amount of money. Then I discovered Nordic makes the PPKII, a cost effective, highly accurate profiler with quite good software. I detect good things in store for the company just based on the quality of stuff they have been putting out.

Do they have nice open-source SDKs for these nice products?
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