Nordic Semiconductor has expanded its 2.4GHz RF and ANT protocol wireless chips with a set of miniaturised, WLCSP (wafer-level chip scale package) options designed to meet the space-constrained needs of sports, fitness and health applications such as wireless watches, bike computers, sensors, hearing aids and other devices to be worn on or near the body. The one- and eight-channel nRF24AP2 WLCSP options are small, single chip ANT network protocol stacks, the nRF24AP2-1CHC32 and nRF24AP2-8CHC32, featuring 400µm pitch (regular array) 32-ball BGAs with a thickness of 0.5mm and a flat footprint area of 2.6x2.7mm. The nRF24LE1 WLCSP option (flash or one time programmable) will be a 400µm (regular array) 32-ball pitch BGA measuring 2.7x2.7mm in footprint area for the flash version and 2.6x2.7mm for the one time programmable version. Both devices are 0.5mm in thickness. The ANT is a proven protocol and silicon solution for ultra low power practical wireless networking applications, while the ANT+ facilitates interoperability between ANT+ Alliance member devices and the collection, automatic transfer and tracking of sensor data. Applicable in sport, health management and home health monitoring, ANT+ defines device profiles that specify data formats, channel parameters and network key.
