4 ms·
The trick is that ESP* chips implement a lot of the stack in firmware. This saves a lot of IP in dedicated hardware that allows for price reduction, but has it’
by xondono 6y ago
The trick is that ESP* chips implement a lot of the stack in firmware. This saves a lot of IP in dedicated hardware that allows for price reduction, but has it’s drawbacks, mostly in terms of energy consumption.
There’s also a good amount of problems involved in having a non-auditable (non certified) piece of firmware running in a coprocessor that handles communications, and being closed source and Chinese doesn’t help.
The difference is generally that the maker space doesn’t need to be production ready.
By the way, Murata has modules on the ~6$ range (depending on what features you want)
- baybal2 6y agoNot only the radio is software, cores themselves, as I understand, are not hard macro, and I find it more surprising that such very generic synthesized chip is not an even bigger power hog.
- monocasa 6y agoJust throwing the entire design at the synthesizer these days seems to be pretty close to a collection of hand laid out hard macros. The synthesizer being a lot more aggressive about optimizing out signals that leave the macro (and downstream uses of those signals, so those global optimizations that are hard for a human to see) seems to make up for it's deficiencies with perfect local layout.
- rowanG077 6y agoWait what? You are telling me the ESP's are actually FPGA's with a preconfigured core?