The NXP OL2385 radio frequency transceiver with embedded microcontroller is designed for a wide range of industrial and home applications requiring very high link budget for bi-directional RF communication.

The embedded microcontroller in the OL2385 multi-standard sub-GHz transceiver enables the implementation of complete subsystem and lower layer driver functions. As a result, package pre-processing and time-critical ACK responses are simpler than the responses from standard transceiver devices fully controlled by a host MCU.

The device is supplied with standard software stacks, such as IEEE802.15.4, W-MBus Data Link Layer, and SIGFOX. These software stacks are preprogrammed in the factory and are controlled by a system host microcontroller via APIs available through either UART or SPI. NXP’s Kinetis® microcontroller is supplied with a driver library and the Kinetis software development kit (SDK).

The transmitter has a high dynamic range of -25 dBm to +14 dBm and efficient power ramping PA. The excellent phase noise of the transmitter conforms to ETSI, FCC, and ARIB standards. Configured to operate with low active and standby power, the transceiver is ideal for battery-powered applications.

OM2385/SF001 Development Kit

NXP provides this evaluation platform for designing SIGFOX network applications that use NXP's OL2385 single-chip RF transceiver.

This kit consists of three boards:

• OL2385 shield board
• OL2385 reference design board
• FRDM-KL43Z board

The OL2385 reference design board is permanently affixed to the surface of the OL2385 shield board. The reference design board contains an embedded OL2385 transceiver and serves as a wireless modem. When connected to an SMA antenna (included in the kit), it provides all the functionality required to communicate with the SIGFOX network. The OL2385 shield board contains connectors for external communication. The shield board is mounted by means of four Arduino™ connectors to the FRDM-KL43Z. The FRDM-KL43Z acts as the communication link between the development kit and a PC. It comes pre-loaded with microcode that manages the interface between the PC and the OL2385 reference board.

Users must initially register their device with SIGFOX using a unique ID and access code provided with the kit. Once the device has been registered, the kit can be used to connect to the SIGFOX network and test the functionality of the OL2385-based application under development.