ESP32-C5 Now Enters Mass Production in Full Swing
Recently, Espressif Systems announced that the ESP32-C5 has now entered mass production in full swing. However, this chip was actually released in 2022. For detailed information, please refer to Introducing ESP32-C5: Espressif’s first Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 MCU.
So, what are the features of the ESP32-C5 that make it so highly anticipated and have led Espressif Systems to spend nearly three years bringing it to mass production?
The ESP32-C5 is equipped with a 32-bit single-core RISC-V processor with a main frequency of up to 240 MHz, and it has 384 KB of on-chip SRAM and 320 KB of ROM. It has 29 programmable GPIOs, supports all common peripheral devices, high-speed interfaces such as SDIO and QSPI, and ensures high connection reliability and superior security functions. The ESP32-C5 also integrates a 40 MHz low-power (LP, Low Power) core, which can serve as the main processor for low-power applications.
As the industry’s first RISC-V SoC supporting 2.4&5 GHz dual-band Wi-Fi 6, the ESP32-C5 integrates the Bluetooth 5 (LE) and IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee, Thread) protocol stacks simultaneously, providing a high-performance wireless connection solution for IoT devices.
The extended support of the ESP32-C5 for the 5 GHz frequency band enables customers to allocate appropriate frequency bands and networks to different devices according to the importance of the applications, saving traffic for critical applications and eliminating interference, thus providing more stable and lower-latency wireless connection performance. By leveraging the dual-band Wi-Fi connection technology of the ESP32-C5, customers can not only obtain maximum flexibility but also be prepared for future demand expansion. The important Wi-Fi 6 feature, Target Wake Time (TWT), allows ESP32-C5 devices, with the assistance of 802.11ax-capable Wi-Fi access points, to extend their sleep time. In addition, the ESP32-C5 also supports uplink and downlink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) access, downlink Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) access, and the BSS coloring mechanism. All these features enable efficient and low-latency operation and stable connection in congested Wi-Fi network environments with multiple SSIDs.
ESP32-C5 Development Board
This development board still follows Espressif’s classic development board style, with all I/O ports extended. However, the antenna is quite different from that of the previous modules, so the ESP32-C5 can support both 2.4&5 GHz.
- ESP32-C5-WROOM-1 – The ESP32-C5-WROOM-1 is a general-purpose module that supports 2.4 & 5 GHz dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth® 5 (LE), Zigbee, and Thread (802.15.4), and it uses an on-board PCB antenna.
- Pin Headers – All available GPIO pins (except for the SPI bus of the flash) are extended to the pin headers of the development board.
- 5 V to 3.3 V DC/DC – A DC/DC power converter that takes 5 V as input and outputs 3.3 V.
- 3.3 V Power Indicator – This indicator light turns on when the development board is connected to a USB power source.
- USB-to-UART Bridge – A single-chip USB-to-UART bridge that can provide a transmission rate of up to 3 Mbps.
- ESP32-C5 USB Type-C Interface – The USB Type-C interface of the ESP32-C5 chip supports the full-speed mode of USB 2.0, with a maximum data transmission rate of 12 Mbps. Note that this interface does not support the high-speed transmission mode of 480 Mbps. This interface can be used as the power supply interface for the development board, to flash the firmware into the chip, to communicate with the chip via the USB protocol, and also for JTAG debugging.
- Boot Button – The download button. Press and hold the Boot button and then press the Reset button once to enter the “firmware download” mode, and download the firmware via the serial port.
- Reset Button – The reset button.
- USB Type-C to UART Interface – It can be used as the power supply interface for the development board, to flash the firmware into the chip, and also as a communication interface to communicate with the ESP32-C5 chip through the on-board USB-to-UART bridge.
- RGB LED – An addressable RGB light-emitting diode driven by GPIO27.
The ESP32-C5 is supported by Espressif’s mature IoT development framework, ESP-IDF. The currently under-development ESP-IDF v5.5 will include initial support for the ESP32-C5. Click here to view the list of functions supported by ESP-IDF for the ESP32-C5. Users can also use the ESP32-C5 as a coprocessor for an external host through Espressif’s ESP-AT and ESP-Hosted SDKs.
The ESP32-C5-DevKitC-1 development board is now available for purchase in Espressif’s official Taobao store at a price of 13.75 USD.
