Hardware description
voltage level to VIO_REF (
P20
). For more information, see
GPIO - General purpose input/output
in the
nRF9160 Objective Product Specification.
VDD powers most of the other circuits and will set the GPIO signal amplitude between nRF9160 and other
circuits on the DK including connectors and PIN headers.
4.3.3 Other power domains
The interface MCU needs a 3.0 V for its
interface supply, a low-dropout voltage regulator (
U28
) is used
for this. This regulator also supplies the LEDs on the
, giving these a fixed supply.
4.4 Antenna interfaces
The nRF9160 DK has three antenna interfaces mounted representing
,
, and the 2.4 GHz radio.
The LTE and 2.4 GHz RF signals are propagated through two coaxial connectors with switches that will
disconnect the corresponding antenna from the radio if adapter cables are connected. This makes it
possible to perform conducted measurements or attach external antennas to the radio.
The GPS signal is RX only. There is a
with integrated filters that amplify and filter
the signal before it is fed to the GPS RF port on the nRF9160 DK. An external active GPS antenna can be
connected to
J2
. When using an external antenna, the LNA should be disabled.
The relation between the connectors, radios, and antennas are the following:
•
J1
– Connector with a switch for the LTE antenna (
A1
)
•
J2
– Connector for an external GPS antenna
•
J3
– Connector with a switch for the 2.4 GHz antenna (
A3
)
For more details on the GPS antenna interface, see
on page 17.
4.5 GPS
The nRF9160 DK has a dedicated
port to support global navigation.
The GPS signal is received either from the onboard or an external active GPS antenna. The onboard
antenna (
A2
) is connected to the
(
U2
).
Figure 11: Onboard GPS antenna (A2), LNA (U2) and connector J2
The GPS from the onboard antenna is amplified and filtered in the LNA (
U2
) that has integrated pre-filter
and post-filter before it is fed to the nRF9160 DK. This makes the GPS receiver more sensitive to GPS
signals and less sensitive to interference from other sources on the
or nearby. The LNA is enabled by a
GPS-enable signal from the nRF9160 DK, using the COEX0 pin.
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