Features of nRF70 Series
The nRF70 Series of wireless companion ICs add Wi-Fi® capabilities to another System-on-Chip (SoC), Microprocessor Unit (MPU), or Microcontroller (MCU) host device. It implements the Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers of the IEEE 802.11 protocol stack, while the higher layers of the networking stack run on the host device. The nRF70 Series wireless companion IC includes the RF front end and power management function.
The nRF70 Series devices are designed for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and are ideal for adding modern Wi-Fi 6 capabilities to existing Bluetooth® Low Energy, Thread, or Zigbee systems, as well as adding Wi-Fi Access Point scanning capabilities to LTE/GPS systems.
For additional information, see the following documentation:
nRF70 Series for the technical documentation on the nRF70 Series devices.
Developing with nRF70 Series documentation for topics related to developing Wi-Fi applications on nRF52, nRF53, and nRF91 Series, using the nRF70 companion IC devices.
Installation and Configuring and building documentation to install the nRF Connect SDK and learn more about its development environment.
The nRF70 Series devices are Wi-Fi companion ICs and do not serve as standalone platforms for developing applications. Wi-Fi applications may be developed on nRF52, nRF53, and nRF91 Series SoCs that support the nRF70 Series companion ICs.
Supported protocols
The nRF70 Series devices support the Wi-Fi protocol. Wi-Fi is a half-duplex packet-based protocol operating on a fixed channel, using CSMA/CA for channel access.
See the Wi-Fi documentation for information related to the Wi-Fi protocol.
Supported Wi-Fi standards and modes
The nRF70 Series wireless companion ICs add Wi-Fi 6 support to a host device that includes IP-based networking support. Wi-Fi 6 aligns with IEEE 802.11ax and all earlier versions of the IEEE 802.11 suite of wireless LAN standards.
Currently, the nRF70 Series devices support the following modes:
Station (STA): Operates as a wireless client device.
Software-enabled Access Point (SoftAP or SAP): Operates as a virtual access point device.
Scan: Operates as a scan-only device.
Radio test: For PHY (Baseband and Radio) characterizations and calibrations.
Monitor: Operates as an IEEE 802.11 wireless packet sniffer.
The nRF70 Series devices also support the following functionalities:
Raw IEEE 802.11 packet transmission: Allows the injection of raw IEEE 802.11 frames in Station and Monitor modes.
Promiscuous reception: Allows the reception of IEEE 802.11 packets from a connected BSSID when operating in Station mode.
Offloaded raw transmission: Allows the offloading of raw IEEE 802.11 frame transmission to the nRF Wi-Fi driver.
Wi-Fi advanced security modes: Allows the use of advanced security modes, certificate-based Wi-Fi security, and the Platform Security Architecture (PSA) security framework.
Peer-to-peer support in the form of Wi-Fi Direct® will be available in the future.
See the Wi-Fi documentation for more information related to Wi-Fi modes of operation.
hostap
The nRF70 Series devices use the WPA Supplicant to implement full Wi-Fi functionality.
The WPA supplicant is part of the hostap project and is a widely used implementation of the IEEE 802.11i standard for wireless LAN security.
The WPA supplicant is a software component that implements the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA™), WPA2™ and WPA3™ security protocols.
The nRF70 Series devices use Zephyr hostap fork, a fork of the hostap project that is integrated with the Zephyr RTOS. The WPA supplicant is integrated with the Zephyr RTOS and registers as a Wi-Fi network manager in the Zephyr networking stack. See Zephyr Wi-Fi NM API for details. The Zephyr Wi-Fi management layer in Zephyr uses the Wi-Fi network manager to manage the Wi-Fi interface.
The nRF70 Series driver registers as a Wi-Fi device in the Zephyr networking stack and provides the Wi-Fi interface to the WPA supplicant. The WPA supplicant then manages the Wi-Fi interface and provides the Wi-Fi functionality to the application.
Note
The WPA supplicant is only used for System mode to offer full Wi-Fi functionality. It is not used in other modes, for example, Scan-only mode.
Supported hostap features in the nRF Connect SDK
The Zephyr hostap fork supports a wide range of Wi-Fi features and functionalities. The nRF70 Series devices use the Zephyr hostap fork but only implement a subset of the features supported by the fork.
The nRF70 Series devices support the following features:
Wi-Fi 6 support.
Station mode.
SoftAP mode - Based on
wpa_supplicant.WPA2-PSK and WPA3-SAE security modes.
WPA2-EAP-TLS security mode.