Seeed Studio has released two XIAO boards built around Nordic Semiconductor's nRF54LM20A wireless chip, Nordic announced on September 28. The XIAO nRF54LM20A is the base model. The XIAO nRF54LM20A Sense adds a 6-axis IMU (a motion and tilt sensor) and a digital microphone. Both boards measure 21 by 17.8 mm.
Nordic and Seeed point to wearables, smart home gear, industrial IoT, and smart sensing as the targets, all cases where a small lithium battery has to last. To help with that, each board pairs the chip with Nordic's nPM1300 power management chip, which handles battery charging, voltage regulation, power management, and fuel gauging in one part.
The nRF54LM20A
According to Nordic, the chip pairs a 128 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor with 512 KB of RAM and 2 MB of on-chip non-volatile memory. A separate 128 MHz RISC-V coprocessor sits alongside the main core. The 2.4 GHz radio is multiprotocol, covering Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth Channel Sounding (a distance-measuring feature), Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, Zigbee, Matter, and proprietary 2.4 GHz protocols at up to 4 Mbps.
Security gets as much space in the release as performance. The chip supports secure boot, secure firmware updates, and secure storage, plus a TrustZone-enabled trusted execution environment. Nordic also lists cryptographic acceleration with side-channel protection and tamper detection. For anyone planning to ship a connected product rather than a desk prototype, that list matters more than the clock speed.
On paper the step up from Seeed's earlier Nordic board is large. Nordic's published figures for the nRF52840, the chip on the XIAO nRF52840, are a 64 MHz Arm Cortex-M4F, 256 KB of RAM, and 1 MB of flash. The nRF54LM20A doubles the clock speed and the RAM, doubles the non-volatile memory, and adds the RISC-V coprocessor. Its Cortex-M33 core also supports TrustZone, which the M4F in the older chip does not. Nordic's nRF54L15, which the release links to, is listed with 256 KB of RAM and 1.5 MB of non-volatile memory, so the LM20A is the larger member of that family.
The wireless list is aimed at smart-home work. Thread, Zigbee, and Matter support means a board like this can act as a sensor node or end device on networks run by Home Assistant or a commercial hub, and Channel Sounding lets two Bluetooth devices estimate the distance between them, a feature meant for digital keys and item finding.
Hardware and software
Both boards carry 28 GPIOs, a USB Type-C port, 8 MB of external flash, NFC, and an interface for an external antenna.
On the software side, Nordic lists the nRF Connect SDK, Zephyr RTOS, and PlatformIO. Seeed's Kevin Yang, senior product manager and Maker Team Lead, says the nRF Connect SDK and Zephyr give the boards a stable software framework for Nordic's wireless technologies. Zephyr has a steeper learning curve than an Arduino-style workflow, so anyone moving over from Seeed's ESP32-S3 XIAO boards should plan some reading time. Seeed's XIAO range already includes nRF52840 and ESP32 variants, which makes the nRF54LM20A boards the newer, more security-focused Nordic option in the same footprint.
Battery life is the claim to watch. The release stresses efficiency and the nPM1300's fuel gauge, but it quotes no sleep-current, radio-current, or runtime figures for the boards themselves, and those depend heavily on how the firmware is written. Compliance pressure is part of why the security list is so long. Rules such as the EU's Cyber Resilience Act are pushing makers of connected products toward chips with secure boot and signed updates, which this one provides in hardware.
Seeed's XIAO boards share the 21 by 17.8 mm outline, so the new pair joins a line that already covers ESP32-S3 and nRF52840 chips in the same size.
The Sense model's extra parts point to specific uses. A 6-axis IMU can drive gesture, step, or fall detection, and a digital microphone allows sound-triggered wake-ups or simple keyword spotting, both of which fit the battery-powered wearables Nordic names. The announcement is a Nordic partner release and does not link a Seeed product page, so details such as the exact sensor parts are not given.
The release does not list a price, a ship date, or a store page for either board. Seeed also plans a further XIAO nRF54LM20B, with no details given.
Sources and image credits
- Nordic Semiconductor announcement: Seeed's XIAO nRF54LM20A Sense and XIAO nRF54LM20A support battery-powered applications with security
- Nordic Semiconductor nRF54LM20A product page
- Images: Nordic Semiconductor and Seeed Studio official announcement and product materials
