Nordic Semiconductor
Norwegian maker of Bluetooth LE, Thread, Zigbee, Wi-Fi 6 and LTE-M/NB-IoT chips, with the Zephyr-based nRF Connect SDK. Toolchain runs on Windows, Linux and macOS.
| Organisation | Nordic Semiconductor ASA, headquartered in Trondheim, Norway |
|---|---|
| Website | www.nordicsemi.com/ |
| Licensing | nRF Connect SDK (sdk-nrf) under LicenseRef-Nordic-5-Clause, which restricts use to Nordic integrated circuits; Nordic's Zephyr fork under Apache-2.0; modem and radio firmware proprietary |
| Pricing | No prices on nordicsemi.com; development kits and chips are sold through distributors |
| Updated | 15 Nov 2026 |
Products and offerings #
| Name | Kind | Positioning |
|---|---|---|
| nRF52840 | chipset | Bluetooth LE, 802.15.4, Thread and Zigbee SoC, 64 MHz Cortex-M4F, 1 MB flash, 256 kB RAM, +8 dBm TX, −95 dBm sensitivity at 1 Mbit/s |
| nRF54L15 | chipset | Bluetooth LE and 802.15.4 SoC, 128 MHz Cortex-M33 plus RISC-V coprocessor, 1.5 MB NVM, 256 KB RAM, 22 nm, −96 dBm sensitivity at 1 Mbit/s |
| nRF54H20 | chipset | Multicore Bluetooth LE SoC, Cortex-M33 cores up to 320 MHz, 2 MB NVM, 1 MB RAM, up to +10 dBm TX |
| nRF5340 | chipset | Dual-core Bluetooth LE SoC with LE Audio, 128 MHz application core, 1 MB flash and 512 KB RAM |
| nRF9151 | module | LTE-M, NB-IoT and NTN modem with DECT NR+ support and GNSS, 3GPP Release 14, 23 dBm Power Class 3 |
| nRF7002 | chipset | Wi-Fi 6 companion IC, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax, dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, 86 Mbit/s PHY throughput, SPI or QSPI host link |
| Power Profiler Kit II | dev-board | Current measurement from 200 nA to 1 A at 100 ksps, 0.8 V to 5 V supply |
| nRF Connect SDK | framework | Zephyr-based SDK for all current Nordic SoCs; v3.4.2 released 4 November 2026 |
Who they are
This hub is for engineers building battery-powered devices that talk Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, Zigbee, Wi-Fi or cellular IoT. Nordic Semiconductor ASA is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway. According to its about page, it was established in 1983, is listed on the Oslo stock exchange and has about 1450 employees. Its product lines run from the nRF52 and newer nRF54 Bluetooth LE series to the nRF91 cellular IoT modems and the nRF7002 Wi-Fi 6 companion IC. See short-range, BLE and UWB and LPWAN and IoT.
Tooling and APIs
What you install. New designs use the nRF Connect SDK, which combines the open-source Zephyr RTOS with Nordic’s own libraries and radio stacks. Version 3.4.2 was released on 4 November 2026. The usual front end is nRF Connect for VS Code. You write C against Zephyr and Nordic APIs. Python enters through tooling, not on the device.
OS support. The SDK supports Windows, Linux and macOS for development. Nordic tests on Windows 11 x64, Ubuntu 24.04 x64 and macOS 26 on Arm64. macOS on Apple Silicon is a tested host here, not an afterthought. nRF Util, the command-line tool for programming and other tasks, also runs on Windows, macOS and Ubuntu.
Licensing at the time of writing. We read the LICENSE files. The Nordic SDK repository uses the LicenseRef-Nordic-5-Clause licence, which allows use only with a Nordic Semiconductor integrated circuit. Nordic’s Zephyr fork is under Apache-2.0. Code you write against Nordic libraries is therefore tied to Nordic silicon, while pure Zephyr code is portable.
Pricing. Nordic does not sell directly. Its product pages list distributors under “Where to buy”, and prices vary by distributor.
Measurement and sniffing. The Power Profiler Kit II measures supply current from 200 nA to 1 A, which is the range that matters for battery-life estimates. The nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE turns an nRF52840 Dongle or DK into a Wireshark capture plugin for packets from the air, on Windows, Linux and macOS. nRF Connect for Desktop adds apps for Bluetooth LE, power profiling, programming, cellular monitoring, RSSI and Direct Test Mode.
SDR and GNU Radio. Nordic chips are not SDRs and expose no IQ samples. To look at their signals, capture them with an SDR such as the HackRF One and analyse them in GNU Radio. For the radio parameters themselves, the nRF52840 product specification gives −20 to +8 dBm TX power and −95 dBm sensitivity at 1 Mbit/s Bluetooth LE, or −103 dBm in the 125 kbit/s long-range mode. Plug those into a link budget to estimate range.
Migration notes
- nRF5 SDK to nRF Connect SDK. The nRF5 SDK is in maintenance mode. Nordic’s statement says no features beyond Bluetooth LE 5 will be added, and the nRF5 SDK for Thread and Zigbee is deprecated. Moving means moving to Zephyr: devicetree, Kconfig and a different build system. Budget real time for it.
- nRF52 to nRF54. The nRF54L15 has a 128 MHz Cortex-M33 and a RISC-V coprocessor, according to Nordic. With the nRF5 SDK in maintenance mode, plan any nRF54 work in the nRF Connect SDK.
- nRF9160 to nRF9151. Nordic now recommends the nRF9151 DK for new cellular designs. The nRF9151 adds DECT NR+ support and is specified to 3GPP Release 14 for LTE-M and NB-IoT.
- Old tools. The Toolchain Manager in nRF Connect for Desktop is deprecated and does not support SDK 3.0.0 and later. The old pip package nrfutil stopped at 6.1.7 in 2022. Use the new nRF Util.
Watch for
- Licence lock-in. The Nordic 5-Clause licence ties SDK-derived code to Nordic chips. Keep hardware-specific code in a thin layer if you may change vendor.
- Sensitivity figures. Datasheet sensitivity is measured under stated conditions on the chip. Antenna, matching and enclosure decide what your product achieves. See receiver sensitivity.
- Certification. A module or chip with regulatory approvals does not make your product compliant. Plan radio type approval for each market. See spectrum, security and regulation.
- Fast SDK cadence. Several SDK releases appear each year, and maintenance branches run in parallel. Pin a version per product.