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VitalCore

VitalCore


(📸 Frank K. Gürkaynak, 2022)

Table of Contents

VitalCore

Overview

VitalCore is an open-source, highly integrated, miniaturized embedded systems platform that includes everything a low-power wearable project usually requires - except application specific sensors and transducers.

Its small 17.6mm*12.6mm size allows it to be integrated even in the most constraint applications, include in-ear and hearable projects. Built around an NRF5340 SoC, VitalCore features a dual-core Cortex-M33 processor running at up to 128 MHz, 1 MB of Flash, 512 KB RAM, and BLE 5.2 complete with an on-board chip antenna.




VitalPack Interface

On its back, the VitalCore features a 0.4mm pitch 50-position connector that can be used to attach application-specific 'VitalPack' expansion boards. This connector exposes power inputs and outputs, the SoC's programming interface and USB port, and 28 GPIO pins with ADC, I2C, SPI, I2S, UART, QSPI, and PDM interfaces available. The SWD pin, battery and charger connections, and QVAR inputs are also available as SMD solder pads on the back side.

The exact pinout is given in the provided documentation.

To accommodate different stacking heights, the following combinations of header (on the VitalCore) and receptacles (on the VitalPack) can be used:

Stacking HeightHeaderReceptacle
0.7mmJAE Electronics WP7B-P050VA1-R8000JAE Electronics WP7B-S050VA1-R8000
1.5mmHirose DF40C-50DP-0.4V(51)Hirose DF40C-50DS-0.4V(51)
2.0mmHirose DF40C-2.0-50DP-0.4V(51)Hirose DF40C-2.0-50DS-0.4V(51)
2.5mmHirose DF40C-2.5-50DP-0.4V(51)Hirose DF40C-2.5-50DS-0.4V(51)

Power



A MAX77654 PMIC provides a full power subsystem, including a software-controlled battery charger with power path switching and up to 300mA charge current, a battery monitor, three software-controllable switch mode buck-boost converters each with an output range of 0.8V to 5.5V, and two software-controlled LDOs each with an output range of 1.71V to 5.3V.

All on-board devices (SoC and peripherals) are powered using a dedicated 1.8V buck converter, leaving all SMPS and LDO outputs available for application-specific circuitry via the VitalPack connector.

Peripherals

The VitalCore comes equipped with the following peripherals:

Panel



The VitalCore Altium project and gerber files include a panel to be used during development. It exposes the NRF's SWD programming interface, USB port, power inputs, and power rail test points. It can be removed manually by cutting the small PCB bridges, or be excluded before production entirely.