4 ms·

Boufallo Lab BL616/BL618 RISC-V MCU Supports WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and Zigbee

54 points by zdw 4y ago

dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
Less than $2 on a ready to use module.
rasz 4y ago
Isnt that the one they promised to open source but are shipping binary blobs instead?
- opan 4y ago
  I recall Pine64 asking for help REing one of their chips. I don't remember hearing Bouffalo would liberate anything themselves.
  - rasz 4y ago
    https://github.com/bouffalolab/bl_iot_sdk/issues/1 https://github.com/bouffalolab/bl_iot_sdk/issues/1
stavros 4y ago
Correction, it's Bouffalo.
- tromp 4y ago
  They managed to spell it three times correctly. Unfortunately, one of the two mis-spellings is right in the title:-(
- cnxsoft 4y ago
  Hmm. I actually corrected the spellings two days ago, so I'm wondering why people are still seeing the old ones now. Caching must be involved, but accessing the website in a private windows shows the correct spellings to me.
  - cnxsoft 4y ago
    I see now, there should be a redirected to a new URL, but it only works as a logged in user. I'll have to check that out... Next year.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Specs don't really matter here... atleast not for hobbyists. Will it be supported within the arduino IDE? Will most other libraries work with it? Will I be able to buy it from aliexpress and other vendors in quantity of one (1) on an easily solderable board? How many lines of code does it take to do a simple http request? Why am I mentioning this? Look at arduino... relatively speaking it was a shitty chip, with low specs and not even that cheap... but it made it possible for a 13yo kid to make a running light example (KITT car leds from Knight Rider show) in basically five minutes. Arduino got replaced by esp8266 (and later esp32) because of wifi, but the led example stayed the same. No data sheets, no inline assembly, no registers, one pinMode() and digitalWrite() and it just worked. For professional hardware developers.. sure, they can read very long datasheets.. but millions of others just want and need something simple and the arduino (esp*) ecosystem manages to do just this.
- Roark66 4y ago
  It depends what you want to use it for. For me as a hobbyist specs definitely matter. But I woukd divide boards that I use into : mostly microcontrollers. Those are fine with a low clock if they have lots of hardware io (spi, uarts, pwm, i2c etc), or if they require bit banging they need a fast clock (rp2040). Then there are Sbcs like raspberry PiS, pine64 quartz 64 and this board. I use them for stuff that requires lots of processing power. Camera encode and send, emulate an old 8-bit computer, do object detection on camera feed, emulate a disk drive for a retro machine and so on. So good specs matter to me. Especially this 6Teraflops NPU. I've been using Google Edge TPU that has (supposedly) 4 Tops and it works great for medium resolution (720p) object detection. Of course I woukd prefer 40 tops and ability to plug nvme storage to run large AI let's say on a small drone, but even 6tops is very cool. It is a bit disappointing it has dvp camera interface only. Csi cameras are much more plentiful these days. Also no mention of camera isp latency makes me think it will be unusable for real time use (I would love to have "<20ms" or approximately one frame of latency).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
sylware 4y ago
I would have prefered a 64bits RISC-V cpu core, that, to share 64bits RISC-V (I know there is a good "compatibilty" between RISC-V 64bits ISA and 32bits ISA. "compatibilty"). My thought is: "Write 64bits RISC-V assembly once for all". And it is missing that USB-C connector on the board and the memory card slot for booting code. You'll tell me the pins are there, but then I am worried about the remaining count of usable GPIO pins.
- rjsw 4y ago
  If you want a 64bit RISC-V CPU then look at the Ox64 [1] from PINE64. [1] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Ox64 https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Ox64
  - sylware 4y ago
    Yep. Even if there is an extra 32bits risc-v cpu.
Roark66 4y ago
I'll believe it when I see it. It'll likely be too expensive or permanently out of stock...
MayeulC 4y ago
Support for Thread too! I eonder how hard it would be to build an yggdrasil (or similar, like pinecone) network on top of thread. I wish it had PIO similar to the Pi microcontroller though. These are game-changing for GPIO, I wonder if they are patented?
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  With this type of chip use the proper term, “support”.
- bri3d 4y ago
  PIO is supposedly patent pending. Other CPUs have similar ideas, but none in the hobby space that I'm aware of. For example, Infineon Tricore has PCP (Peripheral Control Processor), which is more advanced but serves an identical role - offloading time-critical pin manipulation interrupt service from the CPU to a dedicated IO coprocessor.
K0balt 4y ago
Since there’s already good support for riskv in the Arduino IDE and micro python, this chip is going to be great if the price point and availability are on par with esp32-s3. The zigbee is actually a big deal for edge devices, and MCUs are all over the edge. I hear it has an NPU as well, so that’s going to put it up there with the sipeed chip but with more of an MCU niche, which is pretty exciting for a lot of applications. The big ? Is availability and price.

54 points by zdw 4y ago

dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago

Less than $2 on a ready to use module.

rasz 4y ago

Isnt that the one they promised to open source but are shipping binary blobs instead?

opan 4y ago
I recall Pine64 asking for help REing one of their chips. I don't remember hearing Bouffalo would liberate anything themselves.
- rasz 4y ago
  https://github.com/bouffalolab/bl_iot_sdk/issues/1 https://github.com/bouffalolab/bl_iot_sdk/issues/1

stavros 4y ago

Correction, it's Bouffalo.

tromp 4y ago
They managed to spell it three times correctly. Unfortunately, one of the two mis-spellings is right in the title:-(
cnxsoft 4y ago
Hmm. I actually corrected the spellings two days ago, so I'm wondering why people are still seeing the old ones now. Caching must be involved, but accessing the website in a private windows shows the correct spellings to me.
- cnxsoft 4y ago
  I see now, there should be a redirected to a new URL, but it only works as a logged in user. I'll have to check that out... Next year.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

Specs don't really matter here... atleast not for hobbyists. Will it be supported within the arduino IDE? Will most other libraries work with it? Will I be able to buy it from aliexpress and other vendors in quantity of one (1) on an easily solderable board? How many lines of code does it take to do a simple http request? Why am I mentioning this? Look at arduino... relatively speaking it was a shitty chip, with low specs and not even that cheap... but it made it possible for a 13yo kid to make a running light example (KITT car leds from Knight Rider show) in basically five minutes. Arduino got replaced by esp8266 (and later esp32) because of wifi, but the led example stayed the same. No data sheets, no inline assembly, no registers, one pinMode() and digitalWrite() and it just worked. For professional hardware developers.. sure, they can read very long datasheets.. but millions of others just want and need something simple and the arduino (esp*) ecosystem manages to do just this.

Roark66 4y ago
It depends what you want to use it for. For me as a hobbyist specs definitely matter. But I woukd divide boards that I use into : mostly microcontrollers. Those are fine with a low clock if they have lots of hardware io (spi, uarts, pwm, i2c etc), or if they require bit banging they need a fast clock (rp2040). Then there are Sbcs like raspberry PiS, pine64 quartz 64 and this board. I use them for stuff that requires lots of processing power. Camera encode and send, emulate an old 8-bit computer, do object detection on camera feed, emulate a disk drive for a retro machine and so on. So good specs matter to me. Especially this 6Teraflops NPU. I've been using Google Edge TPU that has (supposedly) 4 Tops and it works great for medium resolution (720p) object detection. Of course I woukd prefer 40 tops and ability to plug nvme storage to run large AI let's say on a small drone, but even 6tops is very cool. It is a bit disappointing it has dvp camera interface only. Csi cameras are much more plentiful these days. Also no mention of camera isp latency makes me think it will be unusable for real time use (I would love to have "<20ms" or approximately one frame of latency).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

sylware 4y ago

I would have prefered a 64bits RISC-V cpu core, that, to share 64bits RISC-V (I know there is a good "compatibilty" between RISC-V 64bits ISA and 32bits ISA. "compatibilty"). My thought is: "Write 64bits RISC-V assembly once for all". And it is missing that USB-C connector on the board and the memory card slot for booting code. You'll tell me the pins are there, but then I am worried about the remaining count of usable GPIO pins.

rjsw 4y ago
If you want a 64bit RISC-V CPU then look at the Ox64 [1] from PINE64. [1] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Ox64 https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Ox64
- sylware 4y ago
  Yep. Even if there is an extra 32bits risc-v cpu.

Roark66 4y ago

I'll believe it when I see it. It'll likely be too expensive or permanently out of stock...

MayeulC 4y ago

Support for Thread too! I eonder how hard it would be to build an yggdrasil (or similar, like pinecone) network on top of thread. I wish it had PIO similar to the Pi microcontroller though. These are game-changing for GPIO, I wonder if they are patented?

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
With this type of chip use the proper term, “support”.
bri3d 4y ago
PIO is supposedly patent pending. Other CPUs have similar ideas, but none in the hobby space that I'm aware of. For example, Infineon Tricore has PCP (Peripheral Control Processor), which is more advanced but serves an identical role - offloading time-critical pin manipulation interrupt service from the CPU to a dedicated IO coprocessor.

K0balt 4y ago

Since there’s already good support for riskv in the Arduino IDE and micro python, this chip is going to be great if the price point and availability are on par with esp32-s3. The zigbee is actually a big deal for edge devices, and MCUs are all over the edge. I hear it has an NPU as well, so that’s going to put it up there with the sipeed chip but with more of an MCU niche, which is pretty exciting for a lot of applications. The big ? Is availability and price.