Nordic unveils nRF71 wi-fi soc series featuring edge AI processing and significant power efficiency gains

Nordic Semiconductor has launched its new nRF71 series of Wi-Fi System-on-Chips (SoCs), which integrate a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to enable direct Artificial Intelligence inference execution on the chip itself. This new line includes two variants: the nRF7120, which supports dual-band Wi-Fi 6, and the nRF7120E, which features tri-band Wi-Fi 6E. Both models incorporate the Axon NPU for accelerating edge AI tasks. These chips support low-power Bluetooth, Thread, and Matter connectivity, and are equipped with 4MB of on-chip non-volatile memory and 1MB of user-accessible RAM. A key highlight of the nRF71 series is its superior power efficiency; the standby power consumption is reported to be up to 1/20 lower compared to the previous nRF70 series. By integrating the NPU, the devices can perform AI inferences such as keyword detection, anomaly detection, and image classification directly on the hardware without needing external AI processors.