DW3120 (PDOA) Receiver Instability such as SPICRCE, and Sync Loss

Wireless Connectivity Ultra-Wideband
1

Hardware Setup:

  • MCU: Nordic nRF52840 (Custom Board & DK)
  • UWB Chip: DW3120 (Dual Antenna / PDOA supported)
  • Driver: DW3000 Driver in Nordic nRF Connect SDK (Zephyr)
  • Comparison: Same code works perfectly on DW3110 custom board.

Problem Description:
I am trying to implement an SS-TWR Responder on a DW3120-based board. While the exact same code runs stable on a DW3110 board, the DW3120 setup is experiencing severe instability during reception.

Key Symptoms:

  1. Persistent SPI CRC Error (SPICRCE):

    • Bit 2 (SPICRCE) in SYS_STATUS is almost always set.
    • We successfully read Device ID: 0xDECA0314.
    • We attempted to disable SPI CRC using dwt_enablespicrccheck(DWT_SPI_CRC_MODE_NO, NULL), and even used a brute-force loop to toggle it until the bit cleared.

  2. Sync Loss & Garbage Data:

    • When the chip doesn’t reset, we see RX Error with Preamble Detected and SFD Detected flags set, but Sync Loss (RXFSL) often occurring.
    • Forced reading of the RX buffer (dwt_readrxdata) yields garbage/random bytes, not the expected poll message.

What We Have Tried:

  1. SPI Interface:

    • Lowered SPI frequency to 250kHz to rule out signal integrity issues.
    • Verified readfromspi implementation (switched to single-buffer transaction to ensure CS timing).
    • Device ID reads correctly.

  2. Clock/Timing:

    • Attempted XTAL Trim Sweeping (scanning trim values from 0x15 to 0x45). No improvement; Sync Loss persists.
    • Changed PAC size from 8 to 32 to improve noise immunity.

Questions:

  1. Are there specific initialization steps or register settings mandatory for DW3120 (Dual Antenna) that differ from DW3110?
  2. Why would SPICRCE persist even after explicit disabling?
2

Hi Noah,

Can you confirm the exact version of the DW3xxx driver you are using ?

Thanks
Yves

3

Hello Yves, Thank you for your reply.

I am using SDK version DW3_QM33_SDK_1.1.1.

4

Hi @Yves_Bernard_Qorvo,

Just wanted to check if you saw my reply above regarding the driver details.
Is there any other information you need from my side?

Thanks.