Nordic Semiconductor supports Canadian university embedded program with large donation of ANT+ chips.
Ultra low power RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor ASA of Oslo, Norway is supporting an embedded systems education program being run at various Canadian universities with a large donation of its nRF51422 ANT+ system-on-chips.
The program is run by a non-profit educational group called MPG (MicroProcessinG) that runs extracurricular university student programs designed to complement electrical and computer engineering curriculums. MPG says it focuses on developing genuine hands-on, professional engineering-grade knowledge and experience, and thanks to generous industry support and thousands of hours of volunteer time, its programs are made available free-of-charge to interested students. The only requirement is that students have to have successfully completed a first year of study in their chosen degree.
MPG is now being offered at six Canadian universities this year, with over 1,000 students having benefited from it in the 12 consecutive years it has been operating from the program’s operational headquarters at the University of Calgary.
The nRF51422 is world’s first single chip solution for ANT applications and is suitable for cost, power, and size-constrained applications such as coin cell (watch battery)-powered sports, fitness, and healthcare sensors. The nRF51422 is built around a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor and has 256kB of Flash and 16kB of RAM on-chip memory.
“The nRF51422 is part of the multiple award-winning Nordic Semiconductor nRF51 Series development platform and as such features a powerful and unique separation between protocol stack and application layer for the first time,” says J. Darren O’Donnell, Nordic Semiconductor’s Director of Marketing & Sales for the Americas. “The simplicity of this arrangement was designed to separate RF complexity from ultra-low power wireless development and open up the market to the widest possible range of developers and talent which is why Nordic Semiconductor is delighted to be able to support this Canadian universities student program.”
“With this help from Nordic Semiconductor, some of the costs for MPG are reduced which enables the program to grow faster and attract the largest number of possible students with no financial barriers to entry,” says Jason Long, President of Engenuics Technologies Inc. that was created on the foundation of the MPG program.
“The nRF51422 SoC forms part of a major upgrade to MPG this academic year and is a tremendous, class-leading technological solution and absolutely perfect for the MPG development boards,” says Long. “The unique separation between protocol stack and application layer on the nRF51422 makes it easy to understand and teach, and provides students with a great platform for learning that they can apply directly when they graduate as engineers.”
In the last three years, Long has doubled his efforts of pushing MPG out to universities across Canada. The goal of MPG is to be an invaluable technical and networking resource for students, industry, and volunteers all over the world. All of the MPG material is open source and can be accessed by anyone.
Release Date: October 23, 2013
Source: Nordic Semiconductor
