Nordic semiconductor is a well-known company in Bluetooth technology and their Bluetooth chips are widely used in many consumer devices such as voice remote, smart watch and smart speaker, etc.
Nordic’s nRF5340 is an attractive Bluetooth SoC although it is missing the backend audio part so the implementation requires an external audio CODEC for a complete system.
SAR identifies Nordic as one of the high protentional competitors in TWS SoC, but have not frequently found Nordic’s chip in TWS earbuds. One of the main reasons for this could be lack of the backend audio part so the TWS OEMs are more inclined to choose all-in-one SoCs such as from Airoha, BES or Qualcomm.
Ambiq Micro and Broadcom have similar Bluetooth SoCs to Nordic but they seem to lose traction in the TWS earbuds market as their solution is not an all-in-one chip that most TWS earbuds OEMs are looking for.
While in a similar situation as Ambiq Micro and Broadcom, it seems Nordic is in a different situation as their Bluetooth solutions are quite diverse and strong as there are many applications that do not necessarily require an audio backend.
One of the very interesting points is how Nordic will win back customers in TWS earbuds market with their diverse Bluetooth chip solutions.
SAR recently published its TWS Audio & UI Technologies Service which has the most extensive coverage of the TWS market available. You can also view SAR’s predictions on the LE Audio market here.
