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Nordic is a very high volume supplier of BT chips for consumer applications, but is getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors. Among the we

Nordic is a very high volume supplier of BT chips for consumer applications, but is getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors. Among the western chip companies, they are the ideal candidate for RISC-V adoption. I'm very curious to see what TI is planning for RISC-V as they begin to seriously engage in the low cost general purpose microcontroller market for the first time.

ryukoposting 3y ago
> getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors Not in my experience. Reputable chipmakers are as important as they ever have been. "Westernized" supply chains are a selling point to investors. Regardless, Nordic leads the space because their firmware libraries are best-in-class, and their documentation and support are least-terrible-in-class. The hardware has never been the most sophisticated (or the cheapest) in the segment. ex: until the nRF5340 came out, SiLabs blew them out of the water architecturally, but SiLabs' development tools are a tire fire so it doesn't matter.
ahartmetz 3y ago
> is getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors Oh lordy. Bluetooth is about to get even worse? AFAIK, Nordic's harwdare and software are among the few high quality Bluetooth stacks.
- xadhominemx 3y ago
  I am not an engineer and have not dealt with the chinese suppliers directly, but my understanding is that their software, support, and documentation have gotten much better. And they are very very cheap because they use RISC-V and/or inexpensive Chinese alternatives to TSMC.
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  Maybe the quality of the Chinese competitors is/was worse but ESP32 and its predecessor have completely taken over the cheap BLE/WiFi segment by simply flooding hobbyists and students with ultra-cheap devkits. Maybe something the Western competitors should learn from.
  - fullstop 3y ago
    You can get started with esp32 for $5. Nordic devkits are more expensive, and going past that requires a JTAG programmer, which is an expensive option for hobbyists and students. It's not surprising that they have taken off like they have. Initially it was because it was inexpensive, but now the community is huge and that is a very attractive selling point.
    - audunw 3y ago
      You can get a BBC micro:bit with Nordic SoC for $15 Not exactly $5, but not very expensive either There's also a decent growing community around them You've also got the nRF52 USB dongle which seems similar to those cheaper ESP32 kits, for around $10. > and going past that requires a JTAG programmer No, the official Nordic devkits comes with a built-in debugger. Same for micro:bit. It's just plain USB. That said, I do think Nordic could be better at penetrating the hobbyist/student market. I think one problem is the lack of a combined BT/WiFi chip. I think once Zephyr becomes more mature and there's more tutorials/guides around it, a good BT+Thread+WiFi solution from Nordic could become very popular. Zephyr is a bit hard to get into, but incredibly powerful once you get used to it.
      - graphe 3y ago
        Where are the nRF52 usb dongles for $10?
        nxa 3y ago
        Have you looked at Mouser or Digikey? $9.60 for per unit, in single unit quantities, heaps in stock as of today.
        graphe 3y ago
        No, I usually get chips on AliExpress or eBay since I usually use esp32 for free shipping and they're $20 or more on there.
      - 3y ago
- stefan_ 3y ago
  They don't exactly make their own Bluetooth stack yet, e.g. the one chinese RISCV board I have seen used IP from RivieraWaves (made in France & Israel): https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/rivierawaves-bluetooth-platforms/ https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/rivierawaves-bluetooth-plat... At the end of the day, 2.4 GHz frontends can be done in the same silicon process that makes your SoC and the antenna needs to be nothing more than a PCB trace, so what on earth was going to save Nordic from competition?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
fullstop 3y ago
Unless things have changed recently, Nordic is still king of low power applications. With that being said, I've worked with both the Nordic NRF SDK and the Espressif SDK and greatly preferred Espressif. For doo-dads that I make for my home, esp32 and esp8266 are fantastic. The modules are inexpensive and the community is huge. I would not want to be in Nordic's shoes right now.
- wallaBBB 3y ago
  There are actually 2 Nordic SDKs, nRF5 (now in maintenance, but still in many supported products in the field) and nRF Connect (bundled with Zephyr). Later gives a lot of access to both Host and Controller part of the stack and for commercial products that are not simply flipping a lightbulb it is still a standard. ESPs are good for quick hacks and more competitive with Nordic if low power is not an imperative.
  - fullstop 3y ago
    I've only used the nRF5 SDK. It worked, and it worked well, but it was cumbersome to work with if you didn't want to keep your code in the same tree as the the SDK itself. This was probably an organizational issue on my part, honestly. The other thing which really bit me was someone here used a symbol name which collided with one used in the SDK, but the build system allowed this to link without error.
    - wallaBBB 3y ago
      nRF5 is indeed inferior SDK of the 2 (thus abandoned). Also I dislike that a big chunk of the stack there is a binary blob. Regarding the code organization, not sure what toolchain you used, but the latest recommendation for nRF5 (Segger studio) could make it fairly easy to do this, but manually opening the project config files and changing them, not through the GUI. nRF Connect is a different world, comes with a lot more options, some really rooted in Zephyr OS, some lessons learned from the prior SDK. And if you're familiar with Linux build configuration system, that is basically what Zephyr brings to the table (comes from Linux foundation). But yeah all that flexibility comes as a penalty when you want simple stuff, compared to ESP32-Sx
audunw 3y ago
> "getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors" That's an odd way of spelling "maintaining a stable market share in the face of Chinese competition". Going forward, IoT security is going to be an increasingly important factor for new designs. The EU is quite serious about combating security problems with IoT devices. And security is something that the new products coming out of Nordic is very serious about. I don't think many big, serious device manufacturers are willing to risk being the target of the first catastrophic IoT attack just to save some pennies on a dirt cheap Chinese design, with some poorly verified RISC-V core thrown in with a power hungry Bluetooth radio. ARM TrustZone is not something the RISC-V ecosystem has a clear standardized answer to yet. So I think that's a reason why ARM will keep its role as the main application processor in high-end BT/Thread chips for the next several years.
- graphe 3y ago
  Every IoT device already uses esp chips, that's the only reason they can afford to make them. Them being low security doesn't matter, it's not like smart homes are secure now. Security is not important to IoT devices.
  - jLaForest 3y ago
    Esp32 is not low security: https://blog.espressif.com/esp32-s2-security-improvements-5e5453f98590 https://blog.espressif.com/esp32-s2-security-improvements-5e...
    - graphe 3y ago
      It is up to the manufacturer to implement it, most esp devices like 8266 and 32 have weak security firmware, are easily hackable (benefit to me). Most don't have security in mind and don't get security updates.
      - connicpu 3y ago
        The new ESP32 models coming out, especially the RISC-V models, all have security features like Flash encryption and hardware cryptography modules. Unfortunate for those who like to reflash consumer devices.
the__alchemist 3y ago
They have excellent documentation, and their register-level APIs are relatively high level. Most of their chips fall into this or a related niche: good-enough computating and IO capabilities with RF for battery-powered devices. If I were to build something like this, they'd be my top choice. I wish they would move away from the third-party suppliers for making their integrated modules. So you could buy a 'nRF-53 module with antenna' instead of browsing third party websites. Speaking of competing with China: A Wi-Fi-capable Nordic chip is a glaring omission in their lineup. Give Espressif some competition!
- 5ADBEEF 3y ago
  There is a companion chip, the nRF7002 which supports Wi-Fi. Not integrated into a SoC though but probably way lower power consumption than an ESP. Not sure on the difference in performance between the two competitors Wi-Fi solutions
- xadhominemx 3y ago
  They are working on Wi-Fi
OhMeadhbh 3y ago
TI has had the opportunity to engage the RISC-V community for several years and has, so far, declined to do so.

ryukoposting 3y ago

> getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors Not in my experience. Reputable chipmakers are as important as they ever have been. "Westernized" supply chains are a selling point to investors. Regardless, Nordic leads the space because their firmware libraries are best-in-class, and their documentation and support are least-terrible-in-class. The hardware has never been the most sophisticated (or the cheapest) in the segment. ex: until the nRF5340 came out, SiLabs blew them out of the water architecturally, but SiLabs' development tools are a tire fire so it doesn't matter.

ahartmetz 3y ago

> is getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors Oh lordy. Bluetooth is about to get even worse? AFAIK, Nordic's harwdare and software are among the few high quality Bluetooth stacks.

xadhominemx 3y ago
I am not an engineer and have not dealt with the chinese suppliers directly, but my understanding is that their software, support, and documentation have gotten much better. And they are very very cheap because they use RISC-V and/or inexpensive Chinese alternatives to TSMC.
0xDEF 3y ago
Maybe the quality of the Chinese competitors is/was worse but ESP32 and its predecessor have completely taken over the cheap BLE/WiFi segment by simply flooding hobbyists and students with ultra-cheap devkits. Maybe something the Western competitors should learn from.
- fullstop 3y ago
  You can get started with esp32 for $5. Nordic devkits are more expensive, and going past that requires a JTAG programmer, which is an expensive option for hobbyists and students. It's not surprising that they have taken off like they have. Initially it was because it was inexpensive, but now the community is huge and that is a very attractive selling point.
  - audunw 3y ago
    You can get a BBC micro:bit with Nordic SoC for $15 Not exactly $5, but not very expensive either There's also a decent growing community around them You've also got the nRF52 USB dongle which seems similar to those cheaper ESP32 kits, for around $10. > and going past that requires a JTAG programmer No, the official Nordic devkits comes with a built-in debugger. Same for micro:bit. It's just plain USB. That said, I do think Nordic could be better at penetrating the hobbyist/student market. I think one problem is the lack of a combined BT/WiFi chip. I think once Zephyr becomes more mature and there's more tutorials/guides around it, a good BT+Thread+WiFi solution from Nordic could become very popular. Zephyr is a bit hard to get into, but incredibly powerful once you get used to it.
    - graphe 3y ago
      Where are the nRF52 usb dongles for $10?
      - nxa 3y ago
        Have you looked at Mouser or Digikey? $9.60 for per unit, in single unit quantities, heaps in stock as of today.
        graphe 3y ago
        No, I usually get chips on AliExpress or eBay since I usually use esp32 for free shipping and they're $20 or more on there.
    - 3y ago
stefan_ 3y ago
They don't exactly make their own Bluetooth stack yet, e.g. the one chinese RISCV board I have seen used IP from RivieraWaves (made in France & Israel): https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/rivierawaves-bluetooth-platforms/ https://www.ceva-dsp.com/product/rivierawaves-bluetooth-plat... At the end of the day, 2.4 GHz frontends can be done in the same silicon process that makes your SoC and the antenna needs to be nothing more than a PCB trace, so what on earth was going to save Nordic from competition?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

fullstop 3y ago

Unless things have changed recently, Nordic is still king of low power applications. With that being said, I've worked with both the Nordic NRF SDK and the Espressif SDK and greatly preferred Espressif. For doo-dads that I make for my home, esp32 and esp8266 are fantastic. The modules are inexpensive and the community is huge. I would not want to be in Nordic's shoes right now.

wallaBBB 3y ago
There are actually 2 Nordic SDKs, nRF5 (now in maintenance, but still in many supported products in the field) and nRF Connect (bundled with Zephyr). Later gives a lot of access to both Host and Controller part of the stack and for commercial products that are not simply flipping a lightbulb it is still a standard. ESPs are good for quick hacks and more competitive with Nordic if low power is not an imperative.
- fullstop 3y ago
  I've only used the nRF5 SDK. It worked, and it worked well, but it was cumbersome to work with if you didn't want to keep your code in the same tree as the the SDK itself. This was probably an organizational issue on my part, honestly. The other thing which really bit me was someone here used a symbol name which collided with one used in the SDK, but the build system allowed this to link without error.
  - wallaBBB 3y ago
    nRF5 is indeed inferior SDK of the 2 (thus abandoned). Also I dislike that a big chunk of the stack there is a binary blob. Regarding the code organization, not sure what toolchain you used, but the latest recommendation for nRF5 (Segger studio) could make it fairly easy to do this, but manually opening the project config files and changing them, not through the GUI. nRF Connect is a different world, comes with a lot more options, some really rooted in Zephyr OS, some lessons learned from the prior SDK. And if you're familiar with Linux build configuration system, that is basically what Zephyr brings to the table (comes from Linux foundation). But yeah all that flexibility comes as a penalty when you want simple stuff, compared to ESP32-Sx

audunw 3y ago

> "getting crushed by a wave of very low cost Chinese competitors" That's an odd way of spelling "maintaining a stable market share in the face of Chinese competition". Going forward, IoT security is going to be an increasingly important factor for new designs. The EU is quite serious about combating security problems with IoT devices. And security is something that the new products coming out of Nordic is very serious about. I don't think many big, serious device manufacturers are willing to risk being the target of the first catastrophic IoT attack just to save some pennies on a dirt cheap Chinese design, with some poorly verified RISC-V core thrown in with a power hungry Bluetooth radio. ARM TrustZone is not something the RISC-V ecosystem has a clear standardized answer to yet. So I think that's a reason why ARM will keep its role as the main application processor in high-end BT/Thread chips for the next several years.

graphe 3y ago
Every IoT device already uses esp chips, that's the only reason they can afford to make them. Them being low security doesn't matter, it's not like smart homes are secure now. Security is not important to IoT devices.
- jLaForest 3y ago
  Esp32 is not low security: https://blog.espressif.com/esp32-s2-security-improvements-5e5453f98590 https://blog.espressif.com/esp32-s2-security-improvements-5e...
  - graphe 3y ago
    It is up to the manufacturer to implement it, most esp devices like 8266 and 32 have weak security firmware, are easily hackable (benefit to me). Most don't have security in mind and don't get security updates.
    - connicpu 3y ago
      The new ESP32 models coming out, especially the RISC-V models, all have security features like Flash encryption and hardware cryptography modules. Unfortunate for those who like to reflash consumer devices.

the__alchemist 3y ago

They have excellent documentation, and their register-level APIs are relatively high level. Most of their chips fall into this or a related niche: good-enough computating and IO capabilities with RF for battery-powered devices. If I were to build something like this, they'd be my top choice. I wish they would move away from the third-party suppliers for making their integrated modules. So you could buy a 'nRF-53 module with antenna' instead of browsing third party websites. Speaking of competing with China: A Wi-Fi-capable Nordic chip is a glaring omission in their lineup. Give Espressif some competition!

5ADBEEF 3y ago
There is a companion chip, the nRF7002 which supports Wi-Fi. Not integrated into a SoC though but probably way lower power consumption than an ESP. Not sure on the difference in performance between the two competitors Wi-Fi solutions
xadhominemx 3y ago
They are working on Wi-Fi

OhMeadhbh 3y ago

TI has had the opportunity to engage the RISC-V community for several years and has, so far, declined to do so.