“If you’re looking experiment with your own BLE5 compatible designs, this project is for you. This article demonstrates a solderless-breadboard compatible carrier-board for a pre-certified BLE4 or BLE5 module made by GT-Tronics.
As Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0 (BLE5) continues to enter the market, you will undoubtedly want to start incorporating it into your next design. BLE5.0 remains backward-compatible with previous BLE standards and adds two new PHY layers: long distance (LE 1M coded), which supports link distances of 1.5 km at decreased data rates, and high speed (LE 2M).
While very large-scale operations can afford to design custom modules or boards and have them FCC certified, most designers incorporating BLE5 will have to make do with pre-certified modules from secondary manufacturers.
This project makes a carrier board for FCC-certified BLE4 or BLE5 modules made by GT-tronics. GT-tronics uses the Texas Instruments CC2640 SoC on their CC264BNA-S module, which we’ll use in this design. Complete board files are available at the end of the article.
This design incorporates the CC264BPA-S module, the Silicon Labs CP2102N USB-to-UART converter, and a 0.1” header to allow interface to a solderless breadboard for prototyping.”