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

esp32-c5

• 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.

Built-in 5M sampling rate dual 12-bit ADC unit, 20M sampling rate 10-bit high-speed HSADC unit, 16-channel touch-key, dual DAC unit, 3 groups of OPA, voltage CMP and other analog resources, support 10M/100M Ethernet communication.

It supports USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, USB Host and USB Device, Type-C and PDUSB fast charging, SerDes high-speed isolation and remote transmission, and dual-core division of labor to improve the efficiency of network protocol processing and communication response speed.

)

WCH has recently launched the CH32H417 USB3.0 evaluation board. This board features exposed interfaces including a USB3.0 Type-A port, a 1000Mbps Ethernet port, USB2.0 Type-A & Type-C ports, and a debugging port. According to the video released by WCH, the bandwidth of the USB3.0 port reaches 450MBps. The board provides a variety of interfaces to support the development of various high-speed and low-speed applications.

The SDK for CH32H417 has been updated to Version 1.2. It also provides reference schematics for the evaluation board, as well as the chip’s datasheet and technical manual. Those in need can download the materials here.

CH32H417 SDK

The WCH CH32H417 development board can be purchased on AnalogLamb.Com for $19.99.

System Block Diagram

Product Features

• Dual-core architecture: Qingke RISC-V5F and RISC-V3F

• V5F maximum frequency: 400MHz, V3F maximum frequency: 144MHz

• 896KB SRAM, 960KB Flash

• System supply voltage: rated 3.3V

• Conventional GPIO supply voltage: rated 3.3V, supports 1.8V

• High-speed GPIO supply voltage: selectable 1.2/1.8/2.5/3.3V

• 2 groups of 16-channel universal DMA controllers

• 2 groups of 12-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADC), sampling rate up to 5Msps, supporting dual ADC conversion mode

• 1 group of 10-bit high-speed analog-to-digital converter (HSADC), sampling rate up to 20Msps

• 16-channel TouchKey detection

• 2 groups of 12-bit digital-to-analog converters (DAC)

• 32-bit wide 125MHz universal high-speed interface (UHSIF)

• 144MHz digital image interface (DVP)

• 200MHz dual-edge SD/EMMC controller (SDMMC)

• SDIO host/slave interface: supports SD/SDIO/MMC

• Single-wire protocol master interface (SWPMI)

• Programmable protocol I/O controller (PIOC)

• Ethernet controller MAC and 10M/100M PHY

• 5Gbps ultra-high-speed USB 3.0 controller and PHY

• 480Mbps high-speed USB 2.0 controller and PHY

• Full-speed USB 2.0 controller and PHY

• Long-distance SerDes controller and PHY, supporting kilovolt-level high-voltage signal isolation transmission

• USB PD and Type-C controller and PHY

• 1 group of analog voltage comparators (CMP)

• 3 groups of operational amplifiers (OPA/PGA)/voltage comparators

• 2 16-bit advanced timers, 4 16-bit and 4 32-bit general-purpose timers

• 2 16-bit basic timers, 2 16-bit low-power timers

• 2 watchdog timers: independent and window types, 2 32-bit system timebase timers

• 8 USART ports, 4 I2C interfaces, 1 I3C interface

• 4 SPI interfaces, 2 QuadSPI interfaces, 3 CAN interfaces (2.0B active)

• Digital filter for ΣΔ modulators (DFSDM)

• Serial audio interface (SAI)

• DCT-TFT display controller (LTDC)

• Graphics processing hardware accelerator (GPHA)

• Flexible memory controller (FMC)

• 95 I/Os, mapped to 16 external interrupts

• ECDC encryption module

• Supports single-wire (default) and dual-wire debugging modes

• Package types: QFN128, QFN88, QFN68, QFN60X6

Selection Guide

Resource Download

• CH32H417 Data Sheet

• CH32H417 Technical Manual

• CH32H417 SDK

D-Robotics, a subsidiary of Chinese chip company Horizon Robotics, has launched the industry’s first single-SoC computation-control integrated robot development kit RDK S100.

CPU+MCU+NPU Collaborative Architecture Enables “Perception-Decision-Action” Closed Loop

The RDK S100 adopts a brain-cerebellum architecture, integrating brain and cerebellum functional modules into a single SoC platform. This not only reduces hardware costs but also enhances overall performance. It supports efficient collaboration between large and small embodied intelligence models and provides rich peripheral interfaces, as well as full-link development infrastructure support for software-hardware coordination and edge-cloud integration.

For the brain-cerebellum structure of hierarchical decision-making models, a single SoC platform that balances low power consumption and diverse computing power combinations is required. The RDK S100 integrates CPU+BPU+MCU on a single SoC to achieve a trinity of “perception + decision + action”:

• Brain: 6-core Arm Cortex-A78AE CPU (supports real-time kernels, featuring efficient scheduling and low latency) + 80TOPS BPU (optimized for CNN and Transformer, enabling faster inference and lower power consumption), meeting computational needs for complex decision-making and planning tasks.

• Cerebellum: 4-core Arm Cortex-R52+MCU, providing robots with high-frame-rate, low-latency real-time joint control capabilities for various real-time motion control scenarios.

This architecture allows the RDK S100 to support dynamic fusion and seamless switching of large and small models. On one hand, it can deploy popular models such as visual/point cloud detection, LLM, and VLM to provide accurate data support for robot decision-making. On the other hand, it can deploy multiple motion control models to enable stable and reliable high-speed, high-precision motion control. Meanwhile, the close collaboration between MCU and BPU reduces CPU load by 80% and improves robot response speed.

Over 50+ Customers Evaluated, Applied to Humanoid/Quadruped Robots and More

Currently, D-Robotics has partnered with over 20+ leading embodied intelligence customers. The RDK S100 has been evaluated by more than 50+ customers and applied to various products, including:
– Bipedal/point-foot robots, small biped robots, semi-humanoid robots, quadruped robots, LeRobot mechanical arms, humanoid robots, BEV detection, multi-channel video detection systems

At the launch event, the RDK S100 was demonstrated in Unitree G1 robots, Reeman robots, and multiple mechanical arms performing tasks such as dance performances, object sorting, and complex terrain traversal.

RDK S100 Technical Specifications

• AI Performance – 80 TOPS

• CPU – 6x Arm Cortex-A78AE@1.5GHz

• MCU – 4x Arm Cortex-R52+@1.2GHz

• GPU – 1x Arm Mali-G78AE@100 GFLOPS

• Memory – 12GB LPDDR5, 96-bit

• Storage

  • 64GB eMMC

  • M.2 Key M (PCIe 3.0 x1) * 1

• Display – HDMI 1.4 up to 2K@60FPS

• Network

  • Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45 Connector) * 2

  • M.2 Key E (PCIe 3.0 x1, UART) Connector for Wi-Fi & Bluetooth

• USB

  • USB 2.0 (Type-C) * 1 for flash & debug

  • USB 3.0 * 4

• Expansion Header

  • JTAG Header * 1

  • Automatic Header * 1

  • 40-pin Header for Main GPIO * 1

  • 16-pin Header for MCU GPIO * 1

  • Camera Expansion Header * 1

  • MCU Port Expansion Header * 1

• Power – 12-20V DC

• Mechanical – 120x121x51mm (Case Included)

Half the Price of NVIDIA Products with Similar Computing Power

These features are critical for embodied robot developers. Equally important is the pricing: the more powerful RDK S100P with larger memory will launch in Q3 this year, while the RDK S100 is now available at a limited-time discount of 389USD — nearly half the cost of NVIDIA’s product with similar computing power. At this price, the RDK S100 truly aims to “be friends with embodied robot developers.”

For international customers, AnalogLamb.Comsupports pre-order purchases, send email to us.