⚡ Nordic nRF54LC10A: a multiprotocol wireless SoC that hibernates below 50 nA

Nordic Semiconductor has expanded its nRF54L series with the nRF54LC10A, a 2.4 GHz wireless SoC with trimmed memory (192 KB RAM, 1,012 KB NVM) and fewer peripherals than the nRF54L15, but keeping the full multiprotocol radio: Bluetooth LE 5.4 with Channel Sounding plus IEEE 802.15.4 for Thread, Zigbee and Matter, explains CNX Software. The core is a 128 MHz Cortex-M33 with a RISC-V coprocessor handling I/O acceleration, all built on a 22 nm process.

The differentiating argument is a sub-50 nA hibernation mode: devices can ship with their batteries already installed without draining during transport and storage — an engineering detail that becomes a commercial argument for sealed sensors (logistics, agriculture, disposable medical). In regular sleep the chip draws 0.5 to 1.6 µA, and Nordic claims 30-50 % lower Bluetooth LE power than the nRF52 family, still the industry baseline.

Channel Sounding deserves attention: this radio-channel-based distance measurement, finalized with Bluetooth 6.0, now lands in an entry-level SoC — pulling infrastructure-free indoor positioning (keys, badges, warehouse robots) downmarket. The sub-2 mm × 2.3 mm CSP packages confirm the target: wearables and credit-card trackers.

Against Espressif's ESP32-C series, increasingly aggressive on low power, Nordic is fortifying its home turf: the lowest consumption and the most mature software stack (Zephyr, NCS). Sources: CNX Software, nordicsemi.com.