SparkFun's Latest Thing Plus Packs a Dual-Core, Low-Power u-blox NORA-W306 for IoT Fun
With a high-performance core next to a low-power core, and features for shutting subsystems down, this new board is great for battery power.
SparkFun has released a Feather-style Thing Plus built around the u-blox NORA-W306 module, which delivers a flexible development board with a choice of high-performance or low-power processor cores — and radios for dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy (BLE) too.
"The [NORA-W306] module contains a Realtek RTL8720DF, which has an integrated single-chip low-power dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) wireless LAN (WLAN) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE 5.3) communication microcontroller," SparkFun explains of its latest launch. "It also consists of a dual processor core: Arm Cortex-M33 and Cortex-M23. To complement the module's low-power options, we've optimized components and added the ability to depower all subsystems to conserve as much power as possible for remote battery-powered applications."
Built in SparkFun's familiar breadboard-friendly Feather-style Thing Plus form factor, the new board packs a pair of processor cores: a high-performance Arm Cortex-M33 core, running at a speed of up to 200MHz; and a low-power Cortex-M2 core, which maxes out at 20MHz. There's 512kB of static RAM (SRAM) for the main core, while the low-power core gets 64kB of its own — and both can access an encrypted 4MB flash.
The module includes 20 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, all of which support interrupts, with three 12-bit analog to digital converter (ADC) pins, 12 pulse-width modulation (PWM) pins, and two UART, two SPI, and one I2C buses. There's a microSD Card socket for storage, a two-pin JST-style connector for an optional battery that can be charged from the board's USB Type-C port, and a Qwiic connector for solderless expansion.
The SparkFun Thing Plus NORA-W306 is available on the company store now at $39.95, before volume discounts.