7 ms·

ESP32-S31

362 points by volemo 4mo ago

rie_t 4mo ago
Love to see more RISC-V in the wild
- rasz 4mo ago
  Why? Because company you buy stuff from didnt have to pay license? I always imagine people saying this havent seen riscv assembler code.
randomint64 4mo ago
Espressif is on fire! And the CPU even has SIMD instructions! RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems because now compiling for SoCs is only a matter of `rustup target add riscv32imac-unknown-none-elf` instead of downloading half-broken proprietary toolchains and SDKs. Take a look at https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-with-rust https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-wit... and https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest to get started with modern (Rust ;) embedded development.
- cassepipe 4mo ago
  Curious: What does the "imac" stand for in the architecture target name ?
  - JdeBP 4mo ago
    There are a few lettered extensions to the base RV32I instruction set. e.g.: * https://docs.riscv.org/reference/isa/unpriv/m-st-ext.html https://docs.riscv.org/reference/isa/unpriv/m-st-ext.html
  - mentalpagefault 4mo ago
    IMAC are the RISC-V extensions supported: I = Base integer instruction set, 32-bit M = Standard extension for integer multiplication and division A = Standard extension for atomic instructions C = Standard extension for compressed instructions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V#ISA_base_and_extensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V#ISA_base_and_extensions
    - cassepipe 4mo ago
      Thanks.I can't believe they chose non-arcane, memory-friendly letters. Kind of rare in naming hardware I feel (unless it's not ?)
      - NekkoDroid 4mo ago
        I see you are unfamiliar with `rv64mafdcbvh_zicsr_zicntr_zihpm_ziccif_ziccrse_ziccrse_ziccamoa_zicclsm_za64rs_zihintpause_zic64b_zicbom_zicbop_zicboz_zfhmin_zkt_zihintntl_zicond_zimop_zcmop_zcb_zfa_zawrs_supm_svade_ssccptr_sstvecd_sstvala_sscounterenw_svpbmt_svinval_svnapot_sstc_sscofpmf_ssnpm_ssu64xl_sstateen_shcounterenw_shvstvala_shtvala_shvstvecd_shvsatpa_shgatpa` also known as `RVA23`
        snvzz 4mo ago
        rva23 is pretty friendly. Needn't use the long thing.
        NekkoDroid 4mo ago
        Yea, but remove any one of the extensions and you have a distinct arch with a name that is basically just as confusing. The point I wanted to make is that nowadays a lot of the extensions do not have such a nice (semi) easy to remember name.
        sukuva 4mo ago
        RISC-V went wild with the extension naming in the past few years with the recently ratified extensions. The original extensions are all clubbed to be labelled as G.
      - tux3 4mo ago
        The core set of extensions has pretty friendly single letters, but the flip side is you run out of letters pretty quickly. The non-single-letter extensions should make you feel more at home. Like the supervisor instructions. You have Smcntrpmf which helps with benchmarking by pausing perf counters during traps. I think Smcntrpmf just rolls off the tongue nicely. Then there's a lot of extensions that start with Z followed by a sprinkling of random letters which is secretly an abbreviation you couldn't have guessed. For instance you have your SHA-2 instructions in Zvknha and Zvknhb, since that's the Vector Krypto NIST Hashes.
  - NooneAtAll3 4mo ago
    where did you find it?
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- tosh 4mo ago
  very interesting, do you have a pointer with more info on what kind of SIMD support it has?
  - bobmcnamara 4mo ago
    Hopefully comparable or better than ESP32S3. But with the weird alignment thing fixed
  - throwaway81523 4mo ago
    Why on earth SIMD instead of the risc-v vector extensions that are supposed to be better?
    - andynerd 4mo ago
      For compatibility and simplicity. Most SIMD instructions in P4 and S31 (compatible with P4 rev 3.x) are an direct evolution from S3. Espressif just doesn't want to rewrite their optimized assembly libraries.
  - andylinpersonal 4mo ago
    The same as P4 rev 3.x, which is still undocumented. Assembler source and esp-nn/esp-dsp are your friend. Some people have also tried some stuff. And HP core 0 is scalar-only now.
- phkahler 4mo ago
  >> And the CPU even has SIMD instructions! Yes, but it looks like there is no hardware floating point. The description of the CORDIC module indicates fixed-point calculations, which is consistent with the lack of any reference to floating point. I am happy the have CAN-FD and Motor PWM module, but nowhere did I see conversion times listed for the ADC. For motor control I demand 1uS conversion time or less, and in the last year I've switched from fixed point to floating point after holding off on that switch for ~15 years.
  - NooneAtAll3 4mo ago
    where did you find cordic mention?
  - polpo 4mo ago
    From the ESP32-S31 datasheet: "Single-precision floating-point unit (FPU) per core"
  - BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
    The datasheet apparently doesn't say, but judging by their other products' listed 12 bit SAR ADC sampling rates (and assuming this one is similar to what appears to be their standard ADC ) the conversion time will be on the order of 10uS.
  - BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
    Also why do you need 1uS for motor control? 1uS is 0.1 degrees of rotation at 16,666 RPM if I did the math right. I don't know much about motor control, is it normal to need that fast of feedback?
    - greenavocado 4mo ago
      People will always find a reason to complain or pretend they are controlling rocket motor servos with their ESP32
    - phkahler 4mo ago
      >> Also why do you need 1uS for motor control? It's not that important if you use current sensors on the motor phases. But then you're looking at HALL sensors or a shunt with a very high gain amplifier with good common mode rejection - looking for mV signals on top of a +12V or +48V square wave at PWM frequency. By using low-side shunts under each half-bridge you don't need the common mode rejection, but you can only measure phase current while the low side FET for that phase is on. That means limiting the PWM duty cycle to ensure that FET is on long enough to measure current, so we trade available voltage range for sample time. I've also written code to measure all phase voltages with a single low-side current shunt under the whole 3-phase bridge. That requires careful phase shifting of the PWM signals and very fast conversion time, but you don't have to compromise available voltage range 0-100 percent duty cycle is possible. Typically we run the control loop at PWM frequency, but the measurements need to be faster than that.
- Havoc 4mo ago
  Nice. Been meaning to try rust on these sort of devices but the riscv I saw thus far seemed to be mixed arm and riscv which seemed weird
- moffkalast 4mo ago
  The sooner ARM and its closed ecosystem dies, the better. The era of shitty half working blobs has gone on for quite long enough.
  - Teknoman117 4mo ago
    Almost everything we hate about ARM based systems is the result of everyone in the SoC ecosystem, not just ARM. It's just unfortunate for them from an optics perspective that they've been basically the only CPU core on the block so they get the brunt of the hate. I place far, far more blame on companies like Qualcomm, Broadcom, Imagination Technologies (PowerVR), etc. Go look at any of the non-microcontroller RISC-V based SoCs. It's not any better on any metric. Upstream software support is little to non-existent. Basically every RISC-V board needs a vendor kernel and they all have device tree and u-boot hell. The SoC providers that make powerful chips are in the market of selling more chips - bad external support is a feature for them. Means that when they stop supporting the product you have to come buy a new chip. And if everyone does that, there's no better company to switch to because they all treat you the same. About the only SoC vendor I have any respect for is Texas Instruments because they actually upstream a bunch of their code. Honestly I think this is because most of their parts are aimed industrial products and have support cycles >10 years. I intentionally didn't say Rockchip because while they're in a bunch of hobby boards they don't really help with open source hardware work. They just take the position of "we won't stop you, but we're not going to help you".
- amelius 4mo ago
  Yeah but the moment you need IP blocks like for wifi or ethernet or usb, it's back to square one.
  - nine_k 4mo ago
    I suppose ESP32-based modules usually carry networking and USB hardware which is immediately usable, without esoteric IP licenses, don't they?
    - kelnos 4mo ago
      The wifi bits are closed-source blobs. The rust embedded community has reverse-engineered some of it for some chips, but not sure how complete that work is.
      - jamesmunns 4mo ago
        It's worth noting that the support for ESP32 in Rust is official [0], and there are multiple full time engineers at Espressif working on developing and maintaining it. [0]: https://github.com/esp-rs/esp-hal/ https://github.com/esp-rs/esp-hal/
- taude 4mo ago
  I need the equivalent of Claude Code, but for hardware projects, so I can actually do all the projects I envision with the EPS32s. Something that combines: 3d printing; auto procurement of parts; custom software writing; maybe a robot arms or something, all in a nice box on my desk that I feed parts into like a mail slot. PROFIT.
  - all2 4mo ago
    Tbh, we're pretty close to that. This would essentially be the following set of work cells: - PCB etching/engraving - Solder placement - component placement - solder oven This gets you one layer populated PCBs out the other side. Commercial systems like this exist in various forms, and open source projects for all of these also exist. It would be up to you to integrate them together. As it stands, the frontier models are actually pretty ok at firmware dev at a high level. If you need max performance, they won't be any good at all (learning from the dregs of the internet isn't exactly helpful here). You'll also need to bring at least a willingness to learn about what is involved so you can debug the machine's mistakes.
  - ecesena 4mo ago
    For firmware dev, Claude is amazing. Just plug the dev board and tell him what you need. Great learning tool too!
  - hugojan 4mo ago
    At least part of what you describe is already being built: https://www.schematik.io/ https://www.schematik.io/
- ape4 4mo ago
  Its good you can do that but the command doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
- nekiwo 4mo ago
  ESP32-S3 already had SIMD, but Xtensa wasn't quite friendly about it. https://bitbanksoftware.blogspot.com/2024/01/surprise-esp32-s3-has-few-simd.html https://bitbanksoftware.blogspot.com/2024/01/surprise-esp32-...
Imustaskforhelp 4mo ago
The 1GB bandwidth is interesting. It also has Simd instructions too. Could this theoretically be used as a router or wireguard vpn instance?
- KZerda 4mo ago
  Theoretically, yeah. Though at 320Mhz, with only 2.4ghz wireless, even with two cores, I doubt it's going to get anywhere near the throughput to fill the gigabit connection.
  - jon-wood 4mo ago
    Yeah, I’m not entirely sure what use cases there are which include both an ESP32 and gigabit networking.
    - KZerda 4mo ago
      About the only one I can think of is connectivity in electronically noisy situations. It's a lot easier to find gigabit sfp modules for linking with fiber than it is to find 100 mbit modules.
jeremywho 4mo ago
When can we buy these?
- Scene_Cast2 4mo ago
  The dev boards are already up for sale. I'm personally looking forward to the modules being stocked on LCSC, no idea when though.
  - topspin 4mo ago
    > The dev boards are already up for sale. I didn't expect to see that for a while yet. Not the usual Espressif announce and wait a year+ pattern.
- zimpenfish 4mo ago
  Apparently available on AliExpress as a dev board[0] [0] "ESP32-S31-Korvo-1 Development Board Espressif System AI Intelligent Multimedia Development Board Engineering Sample" for £54.79 from the (allegedly official) Espressif store at https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012333744553.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012333744553.html
Aurornis 4mo ago
Good to have WiFi and wired ethernet on the same part again. Although we lost the MIPI support that the P4 dual-core RISC-V line has.
- tetris11 4mo ago
  How does wired internet technically work on these chips? Is it just 8 dedicated GPIO pins?
  - LeifCarrotson 4mo ago
    Not "just", it's (presumably) 8 dedicated pins that form an RMII interface. This is not the same 8 pins as you'll find in your 4-pair Ethernet cable, it's a separate protocol which can be connected to an Ethernet PHY transciever like a TI DP83867E [1], which is further connected to "magnetics" [2], a convenient package of 8 integrated transformers and chokes that provide the galvanic isolation feature of an Ethernet connection. A few SoCs provide integrated PHY transceivers, but usually it's an external chip. [1]: https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dp83867e.pdf https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dp83867e.pdf [2]: https://yageogroup.com/content/datasheet/asset/file/DATASHEET_HX5008FNL https://yageogroup.com/content/datasheet/asset/file/DATASHEE...
    - tetris11 4mo ago
      Oh it's an ADC of some type. GPIO takes 0 or 3.3/5V at low frequencies, ethernet signals are a continuous range of 0 to 2V at high frequencies. Fundamentally incompatible without the PHY+magnetics
  - BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
    Looks like you need an external PHY. It can talk to the PHY with RGMII which uses 12 pins, which are muxed with GPIO8-19.
  - alnwlsn 4mo ago
    You need a transceiver chip which then hooks up to the Ethernet jack. Usually have to do this for any interface when the signals don't come in right at logic level, like CAN, RS-485... although it's not always exactly 'just' logic level conversion.
skybrian 4mo ago
I'm interested in audio out because I dabble in musical instruments. What's the state of Bluetooth audio out on microcontrollers? Is low latency and high quality output possible?
- hackingonempty 4mo ago
  [dead]
- tliltocatl 4mo ago
  Is there any reason you want wireless? Bluetooth audio is a disaster, AFAIK. You don't want to use it for music. Just go wired, the ether is too cramped already.
  - skybrian 4mo ago
    There are alternatives, but being able to use an external amplified speaker and also move around easily would be nice. Maybe it's not feasible yet.
  - numpad0 4mo ago
    There aren't many choices of cheap hackable A2DP receivers if you were somehow looking for one. Not all headphone chips are programmed to run at slightly under 3.3V on VBAT pins so to protect the supposed battery, with no means to reprogram for lower voltages, officially or not.
- oritron 4mo ago
  Low latency in Bluetooth audio comes down to codecs and the best are proprietary. If you want to really cut down latency and need wireless with hardware like this, you could use a second ESP32 and send your own bitstream between them.
  - timothyb89 4mo ago
    I've been experimenting with more-or-less this on the existing ESP32-S3 (well, to a smartphone/PC rather than a 2nd ESP32). Practical bandwidth limits are in the ~72kb/s range with Bluetooth and a custom wire protocol, and Opus voice-mode encoding can't run in realtime beyond complexity 3; music encoding can't run at all. Maybe there's a more compute-friendly audio codec I'm not aware of, but as far as I know these chips just aren't quite powerful enough for high-quality music encoding, unfortunately. I'm hoping the S31 might be a bit better fit here (decent CPU boost + better SIMD). Latency is still a bit rough with BT overhead. There might be some new options with LE audio on the S31 but I haven't found a way to get below ~80ms with the existing ESP32-S3 stack. tl;dr, high quality voice is doable today with okay latency, music probably less so, maybe the S31 will be better
frikk 4mo ago
I've been building hobby LED art projects with WLED (exclusively built on the ESP32 platform). It's been a blast. These little boards are so powerful and the open source community continues to amaze me. My preferred controller platform is of the QuinLED line - comes with power distribution, voltage regulators, fat copper lines, configurable data-line resistors, and smart auxiliary hardware support all for an affordable $30-$50 per controller. (quinled.info) <https://kno.wled.ge/ https://kno.wled.ge/> - WLED homepage and probably my favorite clever URL of all time.
- wolvoleo 4mo ago
  I do a lot of LED projects too but I just use ws2812s. What do you need the controller for? Large brightness perhaps? Just curious.
  - gedy 4mo ago
    WLED is a system that runs on the ESP32 for some cool capabilities to drive the ws2812s, OP linked above.
    - wolvoleo 4mo ago
      Yes but these don't need controller hardware. The OP is using a dedicated controller and I was asking why.
      - leptons 4mo ago
        WS2812 absolutely need a controller, without one they would simply not light up.
        wolvoleo 4mo ago
        I mean a power controller. This is part of every WS2812 itself but with regular LEDs (be it RGB or not) you need power drivers for it, which I call the 'controller' too. You need to drive them at a certain amperage, then PWM them to get the right brightness. But with WS2812 you don't need to mess with power driver circuitry the OP mentioned. You just chain them to a microcontroller pin. It was probably my use of the word 'controller' that is a bit confusing.
gswdh 4mo ago
[dead]
oritron 4mo ago
The specs look great, will see how long it takes to get these as WROOM modules or on little dev boards; my two form factors of choice for Espressif devices. I'm also curious about the pricing, so far they've impressed me with how much more you get in successive generations at a similar price. If you're excited about the (relatively) speedy RISC-V cores and SIMD, look at the P4 which is available now. It has a slightly faster clock but no wireless: https://products.espressif.com/#/product-comparison?names=ESP32-P4NRW16X,ESP32-S31NRV16&type=SoC https://products.espressif.com/#/product-comparison?names=ES... There's some cool work out there using the dsp functionality and built in image handling to crunch a lot of pixel data, which should work similarly on the S31: https://www.reddit.com/r/WLED/comments/1ry2jd7/wledmmp4_with_native_hdmi_output/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WLED/comments/1ry2jd7/wledmmp4_with...
- jamwise 4mo ago
  If the prices remain relatively similar this is going to be incredible value! I might have to procrastinate on my current side projects to go back to another side project I'm procrastinating on because of optimization issues on an older ESP32.
- polpo 4mo ago
  They've already released the ESP32-S31-WROOM-3 and two development boards based on it: the ESP32-S31-Function-CoreBoard-1 and ESP32-S31-Korvo-1. All are available on Espressif's official Aliexpress store.
nubinetwork 4mo ago
This looks like a nucleo144, except its risc-v... but why would I use it over said nucleo144?
- bobmcnamara 4mo ago
  WiFi+BLE?
  - mort96 4mo ago
    And even if you don't need WiFi + BLE for a particular project, you may need it for other projects, and it might have value for you to standardise on one ecosystem.
- KZerda 4mo ago
  Better connectivity. The Nucleo 144 only has 100mbit ethernet, as far as I can tell, but the new ESP chip has gigabit, along with wireless.
- thot_experiment 4mo ago
  Because it's like 5x cheaper and beats it out spec wise in almost every way?
hart_russell 4mo ago
Any reason why this device wouldn't have Z-Wave? Is the wireless protocol significantly different than Thread and Zigbee?
- Aurornis 4mo ago
  This device only has a 2.4GHz radio. Z-Wave is sub-1GHz.
- mherkender 4mo ago
  I don't know for sure but Bluetooth, WiFi and Zigbee are on the same frequency band. Z-Wave is not. (at least in the US, not sure about other countries)
- wiml 4mo ago
  As I understand it, Z-Wave is substantially more closed/proprietary. Both Thread and Zigbee are protocols that run on top of 802.15.4, which Espressif already has in other products.
  - jon-wood 4mo ago
    I think Z-Wave is a bit more open now but everything I’m seeing indicates Zigbee has pretty thoroughly killed it by not requiring arduous certification processes and being generally easier to work with. Z-Wave is technically superior with the ability to have devices directly communicate with each other for basic functionality but at least for me that wasn’t worth the massive markup and I’m slowly replacing anything z-wave with Zigbee equivalents.
    - adamfeldman 4mo ago
      Zigbee supports binding, allowing devices to directly control each other without the intervention of a controller. For example, I've Inovelli light switches that communicate directly with Zigbee smart bulbs.
      - jon-wood 4mo ago
orphea 4mo ago
It being RISC-V is awesome, but how does it make sense that it's S series when S series have been Xtensa cores? Why is it not C series?
- topspin 4mo ago
  S has never implied Xtensa, and C doesn't imply RISC-V. That's a widely held misunderstanding. S, C, P, etc. are product categories, not ISAs. S devices are high performance SoCs; large feature set, high frequency, not the lowest power or cost. Just appending 1 to S3 is odd though. This MCU is step change for Espressif. S4 or something would make more sense.
  - orphea 4mo ago
    Not saying you're wrong (appreciate the explanation) but S has been Xtensa and C is RISC-V; even if you don't imply, it's how the things have been. And given S2, S3, and C5 are all clocked at 240 MHz, the performance difference is kinda blur.
    - topspin 4mo ago
      Espressif is all-in on RISC-V, expanding their portfolio of RISC-V devices where they previously had only XTensa: ESP32-S31 is the first big departure from the coincidental alignment of ISAs within their product structure and definitively ends further debate about what those letter designations mean. BTW, S3 has an RISC-V core in addition to the XTensa cores. That's the part that's running in deep sleep. In practice, most Espressif users barely know or care what ISA is in play: they have ESP-IDF and the Espressif libraries papering over the difference for nearly all purposes.
    - topspin 4mo ago
      This is how Jeroen Domburg, Espressif Technical Marketing Manager, addressed this matter in a post on hackaday.io: "We actually never intended the CPU architecture to be part of the name, as for 99.9% of all users, it doesn’t matter: you write your code in C or some other language, and the compiler plasters over any difference in ISA. Available peripherals, supported radio protocols and CPU power and memory are more important."
mort96 4mo ago
This looks like the long-awaited replacement for the original ESP32. The S and C series have been relatively low performance (the S better than the C but stuck on the outgoing Xtensa architecture), the P4 is powerful but lacks wireless. This is a relatively high performance, dual core MCU with wireless; a nice default option for low volume designs where being able to copy a previous implementation is more important than saving a few cents. Just like the ESP32. Nice.
- swiftcoder 4mo ago
  Can it cope with TLS? The esp32 having a viable TLS stack has been a big win
  - bobmcnamara 4mo ago
    It looks like they've been adding more hardware crypto offloads too!
  - flowerthoughts 4mo ago
    Has TLS been an issue since ESP32? I know ESP8266 had to increase CPU speed to be able to do RSA without timing out the watchdog. Wonderful hack. Didn't think ESP32 had the same issue. Anyway, the S31 has SHA, AES, ECC, RSA, and ECDSA accelerators, so that should be fine. https://documentation.espressif.com/esp32-s31_datasheet_en.pdf https://documentation.espressif.com/esp32-s31_datasheet_en.p...
zuzululu 4mo ago
How do I order a few samples, seem like there is a MOQ ? Also I want to dive into hardware stuff but I'm always clueless as to what I do afterwards when this would arrive? Are you using a generic board or are you ordering and designing PCBs to hook this up to? What are you using it for ? How do I go from a prototype to mass production via kickstarter?
- chrisco255 4mo ago
  Typically you look for a development board with the chip embedded on it. The dev board will have a usbc port and multiple pins that can be routed to LEDs, miniscreens, audio devices, etc. To program it you can usually use Lua (a very simple embedded language, almost JS-like) or you can use C/Rust/Zig as well. Arduino IDE works for it, too. You code from desktop and upload ROMs via USBC. You can plug the dev board into sandwich board for easier prototyping. To go to mass production, you'll need to hand off your prototype spec to a custom PCB maker that you can order from, prices vary a lot based on volume and some shops specialize in low volume for early products. Your end product should basically be a circuit board, case, battery, and any external components like LEDs or screens, then you assemble with plugs or wiring/soldering. It is sometimes possible to make a product from the dev boards, especially the small ones, but your product still has to get a custom FCC certification (not a deal breaker, just a hoop to jump through), whether using dev board or custom.
  - zuzululu 4mo ago
    ty!!!!
jml7c5 4mo ago
Previous discussion from two months ago, when this was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561678
- volemo 4mo ago
  Damn, I’ve only checked the last month for duplicates.
  - jml7c5 4mo ago
    Oh, I wouldn't worry about posting a dupe. Announcement vs release is different enough, and people are clearly interested in it. I didn't link it as any sort of admonition; there was just some good discussion there.
topspin 4mo ago
I'm excited that this MCU and the P4 has RISC-V CLIC. That puts it at least on par with Cortex NVIC and enables bare metal frameworks like Rust RTIC to work really well. Also 4x MCPWM peripherals; that's a first for any Espressif MCU. The additional GPIOs are very welcome as well. CAN-FD! This device is going to be a big hit for Espressif.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
kjlldld 4mo ago
Is anyone else worried that these chips are all made in China?
- chrisco255 4mo ago
  For what its worth, Espressif chips are open source, but yes, I wouldn't run national security or government devices on these. Edit: I take it back on OS comment, they are not OS but some components of the SDK are: https://zeus.ugent.be/blog/23-24/open-source-esp32-wifi-mac/ https://zeus.ugent.be/blog/23-24/open-source-esp32-wifi-mac/
  - Retr0id 4mo ago
    > Espressif chips are open source No they're not? Anyway I assume GP was asking due to procurement concerns, not security.
    - chrisco255 4mo ago
      Corrected my comment, thank you. I mean, if productizing with them, global trade dynamics are certainly a supply chain risk factor, however, security concerns would be the primary reason such chips would be restricted from import.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- abdullahkhalids 4mo ago
  I am concerned by all chips and software made by giant corporations. None of them are trustable, and any one of them will sell me out for a buck. We must constantly fight to have open source and audited chips and software made in commodity fashion.
  - alexisread 4mo ago
    You might be interested in the Baochip https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/our-campaign-has-launched https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/our-campai... Probably the most open chip on the market, and sits between a pi and a pico
alnwlsn 4mo ago
I kind of wish these all weren't called ESP32. ESP8266 and ESP8285 -> ESP32 made sense, but now we have 10+ different versions with different features and different architectures. Kind of like how in every thread involving a Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2030/RP2350), there's always someone confusing it with the single board computer version. The ESP32 (Classic, usually WROOM-32E) is still usually what comes to mind when I hear ESP32.
- pantalaimon 4mo ago
  But it's the same scheme as STM32, EFM32, GD32, …
  - vitally3643 4mo ago
    Yes and those schemes are just as bad as Espressif's
- randyrand 4mo ago
  It signals ESP-IDF compatibility
  - JCTheDenthog 4mo ago
    They can signal that with numbers other than 32, the "ESP" part is what matters.
    - 9rx 4mo ago
      ESP-IDF is only compatible with the ESP32 range of devices, not all ESP-prefixed devices, so "ESP" alone is not sufficient information to satisfy the earlier comment.
      - kelnos 4mo ago
        Sure, but there's nothing in the name "ESP-IDF" that inherently means it can only support ESP32 devices. It could also support a new theoretical ESP33 device. (I don't have an issue with Espressif's ESP32-* naming scheme, but I don't think the ESP-IDF angle is a good argument for not changing it.)
thehk 4mo ago
> ESP32-S31 is particularly well suited for edge AI and machine learning workloads, including neural network inference Any way to know what kind of performance one could expect running e.g. a depth anything model on there?
- otterdude 4mo ago
  I was wondering this as well. What exactly makes this a good AI chip vs others. Unless they're not listing a major feature in their spec, a dual core 320Mhz microcontroller is not bad but youre not going to be running any kind of vision model on it, at least very fast.
- porridgeraisin 4mo ago
  Memory is the main constraint. You have what, 8mb of psram. Compute wise you can manage. You can do quantisation and run a small 10-15 layer CNN perhaps. Image classification is possible. Keep in mind the channel count and input resolution cannot be high since memory will be a problem. You can maybe do face _detection_, "is my cat on my keyboard" classification as well maybe. Audio, you can do a lot more. Wake word detection happens on _much_ smaller accelerators inside iphones. In this one you can do slightly heavier classifications. Maybe speaker identification "which member of family" or maybe "which dog is barking"
- asadm 4mo ago
  nope. not happening. at most YOLO or mayyybe FastDepth
- mattalex 4mo ago
  Regarding specifically depth anything: You're not running this on a microcontroller. In general, CNNs still reign supreme on microcontrollers since you have a way lower peak memory demand which is what usually kills you. Here in this case you have a couple of _kilobytes_ of SRAM, potentially extendable to a couple of megabytes of PSRAM. Even for small CNNs you often need to do some quite complex interleaving of layers (i.e. running parts of layer 1 and layer 2 in parallel interleaved to take advantage of the downsampling of CNNs) to keep performance and memory impact reasonable (see e.g. https://openreview.net/pdf?id=2O8qbyxH6X https://openreview.net/pdf?id=2O8qbyxH6X). Think more "image classifier" less "run an image to image transformer". For depth anything, a single layer's activation is probably significantly larger than the available SRAM (I think it is (224/16)^2 patches each with activations [48, 96, 192, 384] for depth anything small: You aren't running this.)
system2 4mo ago
I wish Espressif was an American company and publicly traded. I'd invest heavily. I have nothing but good things to say about their products. Their product naming could be better; S3 is going to show S31 in the search results.
- nancyminusone 4mo ago
  if it were American it probably would have been hostile-takeovered by Qualcomm or someone else and tightened down long ago.
  - nottorp 4mo ago
    To elaborate, all their documentation would be behind a login that has to be manually approved and they wouldn't talk to you unless you ordered 1 million pieces.
- superloika 4mo ago
  Public companies only bring ruin.
lucamark 4mo ago
Great to hear the adoption of RISC-V across the ESP32 line. The old Xtensa-based parts were fine, but RISC-V should make tooling, compiler support, and long-term ecosystem work cleaner
einpoklum 4mo ago
I'm the maintainer of a standalone printf library, targeting mostly embedded devices and other no-standard-library use cases: https://github.com/eyalroz/printf/ https://github.com/eyalroz/printf/ I would like to make sure the library can be used on this SoC, and other RISC-V systems; which it probably can, but if there are any issues cross-compiling for it, or using the toolchain Espressif provides, please consider filing a bug report on GitHub at the link above. Same of course goes for any FOSS librar/tool that you're trying out. Let's help foster a rich(er) ecosystem of software available on these babies!
thot_experiment 4mo ago
This is so sick except it only has 2 pulse counters instead of the 4 on the S3 which means I can't use it as a drop in replacement on my current project. Not really complaining, I cut my teeth as an embedded dev on the ESP8266 and for years now all of my personal projects (and a fair few professional ones) have been based on the ESP32 line of chips. They're all pretty incredible for the cost, absolutely my favorite embedded target.
cbdevidal 4mo ago
I personally am itching for more hardware H.264 or even H.265. There's the ESP32-P4 but it requires a second ESP32 to handle the WiFi. I got it working, but it feels like a hack, and the BOM cost is more than 2x a single chip. Course more PSRAM and hardware encoding would drive up the price...
redfast00 4mo ago
From the datasheet, I see that there is a Bitscrambler peripheral that seems to be very similar in flexibility to the Raspberry Pi Pico's PIO: > Since bitwise operations can be relatively CPU-intensive and DMA is designed specifically to offload such work from the CPU, ESP32-S31 integrates two dedicated peripherals called BitScramblers. These modules are designed to transform data formats during transfers between memory and peripherals. One BitScrambler handles memory-to-peripheral (or memory-to-memory) transfers, while the other is dedicated to peripheral-to-memory transfers. While BitScramblers can handle the bitwise operations mentioned earlier, they are in fact flexible, programmable state machines capable of performing more advanced transformations as well. Here's hoping that it's as useful as the Pi Pico's PIO
- utopcell 4mo ago
  neat!
snvzz 4mo ago
Meanwhile, Texas Instruments[0]... 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48378136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48378136
- snvzz 4mo ago
  better yet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48386133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48386133
george_max 4mo ago
It's good news Espressif is using RISC-V over something like Xtensa; it's much more open and flexible. Excited to play around with this
jareklupinski 4mo ago
> Bluetooth 5.4 LE Audio enables high-quality, low-power streaming with LC3 codec and multi-stream audio finally i can make party mode home speaker arrays
- MrBuddyCasino 4mo ago
  Is that really what multi-stream is?
  - jareklupinski 4mo ago
    guess i'll find out :)
v1ne 4mo ago
It's sad to see Xtensa go. Their architecture was a clean design, a treat to read the assembly code. I get it, RISC-V comes without licensing costs, but that's one of the few positive things about it. For a fresh start, it is just already in this "we pile stuff on stuff on stuff" state that you expect of an architecture after 10-20 years of productive use.
- MrBuddyCasino 4mo ago
  The inevitable result of Risc-v trying to be everything to everyone, so everything is half-baked.
dsign 4mo ago
I very much respect Espressif products, specially because how good their documentation is. I wish though somebody would package an ESP board with 256 Mb of RAM or more... From what I've seen, that amount of RAM seems to be exclusive Linux SBC territory, but Linux doesn't make sense for a lot of projects.
- andynerd 4mo ago
  Sadly this S31 can address up to 64 MiB of PSRAM at most. And only 32 MiB SKU has been released.
rbanffy 4mo ago
These little devices are extremely interesting. I have a side project I will one day get started - to place 32 SoCs (or fewer SoCs with more cores), connect them via PCB traces to an ethernet hub (I need to learn how to do that), and leave one or more "upstream" network ports for connecting multiple boards together. Each core would light up a red LED on the front-side of the board via 90-degree LED holders. Then I'd pack 16 of them, and build a tiny Connection Machine cube. Not sure what I'd use a cluster of 512 very puny servers for though... I guess it'd be for learning how to manage clusters with unreasonable numbers of nodes.
- goodpoint 4mo ago
  little?
  - rbanffy 4mo ago
    Once I figure out how to join that many cores via ethernet on PCB, it's a little project. SMD soldering should not be that troublesome.
    - throwup238 4mo ago
      What are you having trouble figuring out? ESP32 RGMII (32x) -> PHY (32x RTL8211F) -> Slave switch (6x RTL8367) -> master switch (1x) -> magnetics (for the external port). You’ll probably want a better IC for the master switch so I can’t name one of the top of my head but this would be a relatively simple, if large, PCB. The hard part I think is verifying that all the PHYs and switches will work correctly without magnetics on a board to board connection.
      - rbanffy 4mo ago
        The SoC (I was thinking about the Octavo parts) has two ethernet interfaces. We attach the interfaces to the RTL8211 and then to the switch (or do we need RTL8211s there as well? Is there a switch chip that can operate directly with the SoC ethernet ports? I am way out of my depth here. I actively avoided analog design in college, and it kind of shows. :-(

ESP32-S31

362 points by volemo 4mo ago

rie_t 4mo ago

Love to see more RISC-V in the wild

rasz 4mo ago
Why? Because company you buy stuff from didnt have to pay license? I always imagine people saying this havent seen riscv assembler code.

randomint64 4mo ago

Espressif is on fire! And the CPU even has SIMD instructions! RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems because now compiling for SoCs is only a matter of `rustup target add riscv32imac-unknown-none-elf` instead of downloading half-broken proprietary toolchains and SDKs. Take a look at https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-with-rust https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-wit... and https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest to get started with modern (Rust ;) embedded development.

cassepipe 4mo ago
Curious: What does the "imac" stand for in the architecture target name ?
- JdeBP 4mo ago
  There are a few lettered extensions to the base RV32I instruction set. e.g.: * https://docs.riscv.org/reference/isa/unpriv/m-st-ext.html https://docs.riscv.org/reference/isa/unpriv/m-st-ext.html
- mentalpagefault 4mo ago
  IMAC are the RISC-V extensions supported: I = Base integer instruction set, 32-bit M = Standard extension for integer multiplication and division A = Standard extension for atomic instructions C = Standard extension for compressed instructions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V#ISA_base_and_extensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V#ISA_base_and_extensions
  - cassepipe 4mo ago
    Thanks.I can't believe they chose non-arcane, memory-friendly letters. Kind of rare in naming hardware I feel (unless it's not ?)
    - NekkoDroid 4mo ago
      I see you are unfamiliar with `rv64mafdcbvh_zicsr_zicntr_zihpm_ziccif_ziccrse_ziccrse_ziccamoa_zicclsm_za64rs_zihintpause_zic64b_zicbom_zicbop_zicboz_zfhmin_zkt_zihintntl_zicond_zimop_zcmop_zcb_zfa_zawrs_supm_svade_ssccptr_sstvecd_sstvala_sscounterenw_svpbmt_svinval_svnapot_sstc_sscofpmf_ssnpm_ssu64xl_sstateen_shcounterenw_shvstvala_shtvala_shvstvecd_shvsatpa_shgatpa` also known as `RVA23`
      - snvzz 4mo ago
        rva23 is pretty friendly. Needn't use the long thing.
        NekkoDroid 4mo ago
        Yea, but remove any one of the extensions and you have a distinct arch with a name that is basically just as confusing. The point I wanted to make is that nowadays a lot of the extensions do not have such a nice (semi) easy to remember name.
        sukuva 4mo ago
        RISC-V went wild with the extension naming in the past few years with the recently ratified extensions. The original extensions are all clubbed to be labelled as G.
    - tux3 4mo ago
      The core set of extensions has pretty friendly single letters, but the flip side is you run out of letters pretty quickly. The non-single-letter extensions should make you feel more at home. Like the supervisor instructions. You have Smcntrpmf which helps with benchmarking by pausing perf counters during traps. I think Smcntrpmf just rolls off the tongue nicely. Then there's a lot of extensions that start with Z followed by a sprinkling of random letters which is secretly an abbreviation you couldn't have guessed. For instance you have your SHA-2 instructions in Zvknha and Zvknhb, since that's the Vector Krypto NIST Hashes.
- NooneAtAll3 4mo ago
  where did you find it?
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
tosh 4mo ago
very interesting, do you have a pointer with more info on what kind of SIMD support it has?
- bobmcnamara 4mo ago
  Hopefully comparable or better than ESP32S3. But with the weird alignment thing fixed
- throwaway81523 4mo ago
  Why on earth SIMD instead of the risc-v vector extensions that are supposed to be better?
  - andynerd 4mo ago
    For compatibility and simplicity. Most SIMD instructions in P4 and S31 (compatible with P4 rev 3.x) are an direct evolution from S3. Espressif just doesn't want to rewrite their optimized assembly libraries.
- andylinpersonal 4mo ago
  The same as P4 rev 3.x, which is still undocumented. Assembler source and esp-nn/esp-dsp are your friend. Some people have also tried some stuff. And HP core 0 is scalar-only now.
phkahler 4mo ago
>> And the CPU even has SIMD instructions! Yes, but it looks like there is no hardware floating point. The description of the CORDIC module indicates fixed-point calculations, which is consistent with the lack of any reference to floating point. I am happy the have CAN-FD and Motor PWM module, but nowhere did I see conversion times listed for the ADC. For motor control I demand 1uS conversion time or less, and in the last year I've switched from fixed point to floating point after holding off on that switch for ~15 years.
- NooneAtAll3 4mo ago
  where did you find cordic mention?
- polpo 4mo ago
  From the ESP32-S31 datasheet: "Single-precision floating-point unit (FPU) per core"
- BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
  The datasheet apparently doesn't say, but judging by their other products' listed 12 bit SAR ADC sampling rates (and assuming this one is similar to what appears to be their standard ADC ) the conversion time will be on the order of 10uS.
- BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
  Also why do you need 1uS for motor control? 1uS is 0.1 degrees of rotation at 16,666 RPM if I did the math right. I don't know much about motor control, is it normal to need that fast of feedback?
  - greenavocado 4mo ago
    People will always find a reason to complain or pretend they are controlling rocket motor servos with their ESP32
  - phkahler 4mo ago
    >> Also why do you need 1uS for motor control? It's not that important if you use current sensors on the motor phases. But then you're looking at HALL sensors or a shunt with a very high gain amplifier with good common mode rejection - looking for mV signals on top of a +12V or +48V square wave at PWM frequency. By using low-side shunts under each half-bridge you don't need the common mode rejection, but you can only measure phase current while the low side FET for that phase is on. That means limiting the PWM duty cycle to ensure that FET is on long enough to measure current, so we trade available voltage range for sample time. I've also written code to measure all phase voltages with a single low-side current shunt under the whole 3-phase bridge. That requires careful phase shifting of the PWM signals and very fast conversion time, but you don't have to compromise available voltage range 0-100 percent duty cycle is possible. Typically we run the control loop at PWM frequency, but the measurements need to be faster than that.
Havoc 4mo ago
Nice. Been meaning to try rust on these sort of devices but the riscv I saw thus far seemed to be mixed arm and riscv which seemed weird
moffkalast 4mo ago
The sooner ARM and its closed ecosystem dies, the better. The era of shitty half working blobs has gone on for quite long enough.
- Teknoman117 4mo ago
  Almost everything we hate about ARM based systems is the result of everyone in the SoC ecosystem, not just ARM. It's just unfortunate for them from an optics perspective that they've been basically the only CPU core on the block so they get the brunt of the hate. I place far, far more blame on companies like Qualcomm, Broadcom, Imagination Technologies (PowerVR), etc. Go look at any of the non-microcontroller RISC-V based SoCs. It's not any better on any metric. Upstream software support is little to non-existent. Basically every RISC-V board needs a vendor kernel and they all have device tree and u-boot hell. The SoC providers that make powerful chips are in the market of selling more chips - bad external support is a feature for them. Means that when they stop supporting the product you have to come buy a new chip. And if everyone does that, there's no better company to switch to because they all treat you the same. About the only SoC vendor I have any respect for is Texas Instruments because they actually upstream a bunch of their code. Honestly I think this is because most of their parts are aimed industrial products and have support cycles >10 years. I intentionally didn't say Rockchip because while they're in a bunch of hobby boards they don't really help with open source hardware work. They just take the position of "we won't stop you, but we're not going to help you".
amelius 4mo ago
Yeah but the moment you need IP blocks like for wifi or ethernet or usb, it's back to square one.
- nine_k 4mo ago
  I suppose ESP32-based modules usually carry networking and USB hardware which is immediately usable, without esoteric IP licenses, don't they?
  - kelnos 4mo ago
    The wifi bits are closed-source blobs. The rust embedded community has reverse-engineered some of it for some chips, but not sure how complete that work is.
    - jamesmunns 4mo ago
      It's worth noting that the support for ESP32 in Rust is official [0], and there are multiple full time engineers at Espressif working on developing and maintaining it. [0]: https://github.com/esp-rs/esp-hal/ https://github.com/esp-rs/esp-hal/
taude 4mo ago
I need the equivalent of Claude Code, but for hardware projects, so I can actually do all the projects I envision with the EPS32s. Something that combines: 3d printing; auto procurement of parts; custom software writing; maybe a robot arms or something, all in a nice box on my desk that I feed parts into like a mail slot. PROFIT.
- all2 4mo ago
  Tbh, we're pretty close to that. This would essentially be the following set of work cells: - PCB etching/engraving - Solder placement - component placement - solder oven This gets you one layer populated PCBs out the other side. Commercial systems like this exist in various forms, and open source projects for all of these also exist. It would be up to you to integrate them together. As it stands, the frontier models are actually pretty ok at firmware dev at a high level. If you need max performance, they won't be any good at all (learning from the dregs of the internet isn't exactly helpful here). You'll also need to bring at least a willingness to learn about what is involved so you can debug the machine's mistakes.
- ecesena 4mo ago
  For firmware dev, Claude is amazing. Just plug the dev board and tell him what you need. Great learning tool too!
- hugojan 4mo ago
  At least part of what you describe is already being built: https://www.schematik.io/ https://www.schematik.io/
ape4 4mo ago
Its good you can do that but the command doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
nekiwo 4mo ago
ESP32-S3 already had SIMD, but Xtensa wasn't quite friendly about it. https://bitbanksoftware.blogspot.com/2024/01/surprise-esp32-s3-has-few-simd.html https://bitbanksoftware.blogspot.com/2024/01/surprise-esp32-...

Imustaskforhelp 4mo ago

The 1GB bandwidth is interesting. It also has Simd instructions too. Could this theoretically be used as a router or wireguard vpn instance?

KZerda 4mo ago
Theoretically, yeah. Though at 320Mhz, with only 2.4ghz wireless, even with two cores, I doubt it's going to get anywhere near the throughput to fill the gigabit connection.
- jon-wood 4mo ago
  Yeah, I’m not entirely sure what use cases there are which include both an ESP32 and gigabit networking.
  - KZerda 4mo ago
    About the only one I can think of is connectivity in electronically noisy situations. It's a lot easier to find gigabit sfp modules for linking with fiber than it is to find 100 mbit modules.

jeremywho 4mo ago

When can we buy these?

Scene_Cast2 4mo ago
The dev boards are already up for sale. I'm personally looking forward to the modules being stocked on LCSC, no idea when though.
- topspin 4mo ago
  > The dev boards are already up for sale. I didn't expect to see that for a while yet. Not the usual Espressif announce and wait a year+ pattern.
zimpenfish 4mo ago
Apparently available on AliExpress as a dev board[0] [0] "ESP32-S31-Korvo-1 Development Board Espressif System AI Intelligent Multimedia Development Board Engineering Sample" for £54.79 from the (allegedly official) Espressif store at https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012333744553.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012333744553.html

Aurornis 4mo ago

Good to have WiFi and wired ethernet on the same part again. Although we lost the MIPI support that the P4 dual-core RISC-V line has.

tetris11 4mo ago
How does wired internet technically work on these chips? Is it just 8 dedicated GPIO pins?
- LeifCarrotson 4mo ago
  Not "just", it's (presumably) 8 dedicated pins that form an RMII interface. This is not the same 8 pins as you'll find in your 4-pair Ethernet cable, it's a separate protocol which can be connected to an Ethernet PHY transciever like a TI DP83867E [1], which is further connected to "magnetics" [2], a convenient package of 8 integrated transformers and chokes that provide the galvanic isolation feature of an Ethernet connection. A few SoCs provide integrated PHY transceivers, but usually it's an external chip. [1]: https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dp83867e.pdf https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dp83867e.pdf [2]: https://yageogroup.com/content/datasheet/asset/file/DATASHEET_HX5008FNL https://yageogroup.com/content/datasheet/asset/file/DATASHEE...
  - tetris11 4mo ago
    Oh it's an ADC of some type. GPIO takes 0 or 3.3/5V at low frequencies, ethernet signals are a continuous range of 0 to 2V at high frequencies. Fundamentally incompatible without the PHY+magnetics
- BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
  Looks like you need an external PHY. It can talk to the PHY with RGMII which uses 12 pins, which are muxed with GPIO8-19.
- alnwlsn 4mo ago
  You need a transceiver chip which then hooks up to the Ethernet jack. Usually have to do this for any interface when the signals don't come in right at logic level, like CAN, RS-485... although it's not always exactly 'just' logic level conversion.

skybrian 4mo ago

I'm interested in audio out because I dabble in musical instruments. What's the state of Bluetooth audio out on microcontrollers? Is low latency and high quality output possible?

hackingonempty 4mo ago
[dead]
tliltocatl 4mo ago
Is there any reason you want wireless? Bluetooth audio is a disaster, AFAIK. You don't want to use it for music. Just go wired, the ether is too cramped already.
- skybrian 4mo ago
  There are alternatives, but being able to use an external amplified speaker and also move around easily would be nice. Maybe it's not feasible yet.
- numpad0 4mo ago
  There aren't many choices of cheap hackable A2DP receivers if you were somehow looking for one. Not all headphone chips are programmed to run at slightly under 3.3V on VBAT pins so to protect the supposed battery, with no means to reprogram for lower voltages, officially or not.
oritron 4mo ago
Low latency in Bluetooth audio comes down to codecs and the best are proprietary. If you want to really cut down latency and need wireless with hardware like this, you could use a second ESP32 and send your own bitstream between them.
- timothyb89 4mo ago
  I've been experimenting with more-or-less this on the existing ESP32-S3 (well, to a smartphone/PC rather than a 2nd ESP32). Practical bandwidth limits are in the ~72kb/s range with Bluetooth and a custom wire protocol, and Opus voice-mode encoding can't run in realtime beyond complexity 3; music encoding can't run at all. Maybe there's a more compute-friendly audio codec I'm not aware of, but as far as I know these chips just aren't quite powerful enough for high-quality music encoding, unfortunately. I'm hoping the S31 might be a bit better fit here (decent CPU boost + better SIMD). Latency is still a bit rough with BT overhead. There might be some new options with LE audio on the S31 but I haven't found a way to get below ~80ms with the existing ESP32-S3 stack. tl;dr, high quality voice is doable today with okay latency, music probably less so, maybe the S31 will be better

frikk 4mo ago

I've been building hobby LED art projects with WLED (exclusively built on the ESP32 platform). It's been a blast. These little boards are so powerful and the open source community continues to amaze me. My preferred controller platform is of the QuinLED line - comes with power distribution, voltage regulators, fat copper lines, configurable data-line resistors, and smart auxiliary hardware support all for an affordable $30-$50 per controller. (quinled.info) <https://kno.wled.ge/ https://kno.wled.ge/> - WLED homepage and probably my favorite clever URL of all time.

wolvoleo 4mo ago
I do a lot of LED projects too but I just use ws2812s. What do you need the controller for? Large brightness perhaps? Just curious.
- gedy 4mo ago
  WLED is a system that runs on the ESP32 for some cool capabilities to drive the ws2812s, OP linked above.
  - wolvoleo 4mo ago
    Yes but these don't need controller hardware. The OP is using a dedicated controller and I was asking why.
    - leptons 4mo ago
      WS2812 absolutely need a controller, without one they would simply not light up.
      - wolvoleo 4mo ago
        I mean a power controller. This is part of every WS2812 itself but with regular LEDs (be it RGB or not) you need power drivers for it, which I call the 'controller' too. You need to drive them at a certain amperage, then PWM them to get the right brightness. But with WS2812 you don't need to mess with power driver circuitry the OP mentioned. You just chain them to a microcontroller pin. It was probably my use of the word 'controller' that is a bit confusing.

gswdh 4mo ago

[dead]

oritron 4mo ago

The specs look great, will see how long it takes to get these as WROOM modules or on little dev boards; my two form factors of choice for Espressif devices. I'm also curious about the pricing, so far they've impressed me with how much more you get in successive generations at a similar price. If you're excited about the (relatively) speedy RISC-V cores and SIMD, look at the P4 which is available now. It has a slightly faster clock but no wireless: https://products.espressif.com/#/product-comparison?names=ESP32-P4NRW16X,ESP32-S31NRV16&type=SoC https://products.espressif.com/#/product-comparison?names=ES... There's some cool work out there using the dsp functionality and built in image handling to crunch a lot of pixel data, which should work similarly on the S31: https://www.reddit.com/r/WLED/comments/1ry2jd7/wledmmp4_with_native_hdmi_output/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WLED/comments/1ry2jd7/wledmmp4_with...

jamwise 4mo ago
If the prices remain relatively similar this is going to be incredible value! I might have to procrastinate on my current side projects to go back to another side project I'm procrastinating on because of optimization issues on an older ESP32.
polpo 4mo ago
They've already released the ESP32-S31-WROOM-3 and two development boards based on it: the ESP32-S31-Function-CoreBoard-1 and ESP32-S31-Korvo-1. All are available on Espressif's official Aliexpress store.

nubinetwork 4mo ago

This looks like a nucleo144, except its risc-v... but why would I use it over said nucleo144?

bobmcnamara 4mo ago
WiFi+BLE?
- mort96 4mo ago
  And even if you don't need WiFi + BLE for a particular project, you may need it for other projects, and it might have value for you to standardise on one ecosystem.
KZerda 4mo ago
Better connectivity. The Nucleo 144 only has 100mbit ethernet, as far as I can tell, but the new ESP chip has gigabit, along with wireless.
thot_experiment 4mo ago
Because it's like 5x cheaper and beats it out spec wise in almost every way?

hart_russell 4mo ago

Any reason why this device wouldn't have Z-Wave? Is the wireless protocol significantly different than Thread and Zigbee?

Aurornis 4mo ago
This device only has a 2.4GHz radio. Z-Wave is sub-1GHz.
mherkender 4mo ago
I don't know for sure but Bluetooth, WiFi and Zigbee are on the same frequency band. Z-Wave is not. (at least in the US, not sure about other countries)
wiml 4mo ago
As I understand it, Z-Wave is substantially more closed/proprietary. Both Thread and Zigbee are protocols that run on top of 802.15.4, which Espressif already has in other products.
- jon-wood 4mo ago
  I think Z-Wave is a bit more open now but everything I’m seeing indicates Zigbee has pretty thoroughly killed it by not requiring arduous certification processes and being generally easier to work with. Z-Wave is technically superior with the ability to have devices directly communicate with each other for basic functionality but at least for me that wasn’t worth the massive markup and I’m slowly replacing anything z-wave with Zigbee equivalents.
  - adamfeldman 4mo ago
    Zigbee supports binding, allowing devices to directly control each other without the intervention of a controller. For example, I've Inovelli light switches that communicate directly with Zigbee smart bulbs.
    - jon-wood 4mo ago

orphea 4mo ago

It being RISC-V is awesome, but how does it make sense that it's S series when S series have been Xtensa cores? Why is it not C series?

topspin 4mo ago
S has never implied Xtensa, and C doesn't imply RISC-V. That's a widely held misunderstanding. S, C, P, etc. are product categories, not ISAs. S devices are high performance SoCs; large feature set, high frequency, not the lowest power or cost. Just appending 1 to S3 is odd though. This MCU is step change for Espressif. S4 or something would make more sense.
- orphea 4mo ago
  Not saying you're wrong (appreciate the explanation) but S has been Xtensa and C is RISC-V; even if you don't imply, it's how the things have been. And given S2, S3, and C5 are all clocked at 240 MHz, the performance difference is kinda blur.
  - topspin 4mo ago
    Espressif is all-in on RISC-V, expanding their portfolio of RISC-V devices where they previously had only XTensa: ESP32-S31 is the first big departure from the coincidental alignment of ISAs within their product structure and definitively ends further debate about what those letter designations mean. BTW, S3 has an RISC-V core in addition to the XTensa cores. That's the part that's running in deep sleep. In practice, most Espressif users barely know or care what ISA is in play: they have ESP-IDF and the Espressif libraries papering over the difference for nearly all purposes.
  - topspin 4mo ago
    This is how Jeroen Domburg, Espressif Technical Marketing Manager, addressed this matter in a post on hackaday.io: "We actually never intended the CPU architecture to be part of the name, as for 99.9% of all users, it doesn’t matter: you write your code in C or some other language, and the compiler plasters over any difference in ISA. Available peripherals, supported radio protocols and CPU power and memory are more important."

mort96 4mo ago

This looks like the long-awaited replacement for the original ESP32. The S and C series have been relatively low performance (the S better than the C but stuck on the outgoing Xtensa architecture), the P4 is powerful but lacks wireless. This is a relatively high performance, dual core MCU with wireless; a nice default option for low volume designs where being able to copy a previous implementation is more important than saving a few cents. Just like the ESP32. Nice.

swiftcoder 4mo ago
Can it cope with TLS? The esp32 having a viable TLS stack has been a big win
- bobmcnamara 4mo ago
  It looks like they've been adding more hardware crypto offloads too!
- flowerthoughts 4mo ago
  Has TLS been an issue since ESP32? I know ESP8266 had to increase CPU speed to be able to do RSA without timing out the watchdog. Wonderful hack. Didn't think ESP32 had the same issue. Anyway, the S31 has SHA, AES, ECC, RSA, and ECDSA accelerators, so that should be fine. https://documentation.espressif.com/esp32-s31_datasheet_en.pdf https://documentation.espressif.com/esp32-s31_datasheet_en.p...

zuzululu 4mo ago

How do I order a few samples, seem like there is a MOQ ? Also I want to dive into hardware stuff but I'm always clueless as to what I do afterwards when this would arrive? Are you using a generic board or are you ordering and designing PCBs to hook this up to? What are you using it for ? How do I go from a prototype to mass production via kickstarter?

chrisco255 4mo ago
Typically you look for a development board with the chip embedded on it. The dev board will have a usbc port and multiple pins that can be routed to LEDs, miniscreens, audio devices, etc. To program it you can usually use Lua (a very simple embedded language, almost JS-like) or you can use C/Rust/Zig as well. Arduino IDE works for it, too. You code from desktop and upload ROMs via USBC. You can plug the dev board into sandwich board for easier prototyping. To go to mass production, you'll need to hand off your prototype spec to a custom PCB maker that you can order from, prices vary a lot based on volume and some shops specialize in low volume for early products. Your end product should basically be a circuit board, case, battery, and any external components like LEDs or screens, then you assemble with plugs or wiring/soldering. It is sometimes possible to make a product from the dev boards, especially the small ones, but your product still has to get a custom FCC certification (not a deal breaker, just a hoop to jump through), whether using dev board or custom.
- zuzululu 4mo ago
  ty!!!!

jml7c5 4mo ago

Previous discussion from two months ago, when this was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561678

volemo 4mo ago
Damn, I’ve only checked the last month for duplicates.
- jml7c5 4mo ago
  Oh, I wouldn't worry about posting a dupe. Announcement vs release is different enough, and people are clearly interested in it. I didn't link it as any sort of admonition; there was just some good discussion there.

topspin 4mo ago

I'm excited that this MCU and the P4 has RISC-V CLIC. That puts it at least on par with Cortex NVIC and enables bare metal frameworks like Rust RTIC to work really well. Also 4x MCPWM peripherals; that's a first for any Espressif MCU. The additional GPIOs are very welcome as well. CAN-FD! This device is going to be a big hit for Espressif.

deleted 4mo ago

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kjlldld 4mo ago

Is anyone else worried that these chips are all made in China?

chrisco255 4mo ago
For what its worth, Espressif chips are open source, but yes, I wouldn't run national security or government devices on these. Edit: I take it back on OS comment, they are not OS but some components of the SDK are: https://zeus.ugent.be/blog/23-24/open-source-esp32-wifi-mac/ https://zeus.ugent.be/blog/23-24/open-source-esp32-wifi-mac/
- Retr0id 4mo ago
  > Espressif chips are open source No they're not? Anyway I assume GP was asking due to procurement concerns, not security.
  - chrisco255 4mo ago
    Corrected my comment, thank you. I mean, if productizing with them, global trade dynamics are certainly a supply chain risk factor, however, security concerns would be the primary reason such chips would be restricted from import.
deleted 4mo ago
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abdullahkhalids 4mo ago
I am concerned by all chips and software made by giant corporations. None of them are trustable, and any one of them will sell me out for a buck. We must constantly fight to have open source and audited chips and software made in commodity fashion.
- alexisread 4mo ago
  You might be interested in the Baochip https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/our-campaign-has-launched https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/our-campai... Probably the most open chip on the market, and sits between a pi and a pico

alnwlsn 4mo ago

I kind of wish these all weren't called ESP32. ESP8266 and ESP8285 -> ESP32 made sense, but now we have 10+ different versions with different features and different architectures. Kind of like how in every thread involving a Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2030/RP2350), there's always someone confusing it with the single board computer version. The ESP32 (Classic, usually WROOM-32E) is still usually what comes to mind when I hear ESP32.

pantalaimon 4mo ago
But it's the same scheme as STM32, EFM32, GD32, …
- vitally3643 4mo ago
  Yes and those schemes are just as bad as Espressif's
randyrand 4mo ago
It signals ESP-IDF compatibility
- JCTheDenthog 4mo ago
  They can signal that with numbers other than 32, the "ESP" part is what matters.
  - 9rx 4mo ago
    ESP-IDF is only compatible with the ESP32 range of devices, not all ESP-prefixed devices, so "ESP" alone is not sufficient information to satisfy the earlier comment.
    - kelnos 4mo ago
      Sure, but there's nothing in the name "ESP-IDF" that inherently means it can only support ESP32 devices. It could also support a new theoretical ESP33 device. (I don't have an issue with Espressif's ESP32-* naming scheme, but I don't think the ESP-IDF angle is a good argument for not changing it.)

thehk 4mo ago

> ESP32-S31 is particularly well suited for edge AI and machine learning workloads, including neural network inference Any way to know what kind of performance one could expect running e.g. a depth anything model on there?

otterdude 4mo ago
I was wondering this as well. What exactly makes this a good AI chip vs others. Unless they're not listing a major feature in their spec, a dual core 320Mhz microcontroller is not bad but youre not going to be running any kind of vision model on it, at least very fast.
porridgeraisin 4mo ago
Memory is the main constraint. You have what, 8mb of psram. Compute wise you can manage. You can do quantisation and run a small 10-15 layer CNN perhaps. Image classification is possible. Keep in mind the channel count and input resolution cannot be high since memory will be a problem. You can maybe do face _detection_, "is my cat on my keyboard" classification as well maybe. Audio, you can do a lot more. Wake word detection happens on _much_ smaller accelerators inside iphones. In this one you can do slightly heavier classifications. Maybe speaker identification "which member of family" or maybe "which dog is barking"
asadm 4mo ago
nope. not happening. at most YOLO or mayyybe FastDepth
mattalex 4mo ago
Regarding specifically depth anything: You're not running this on a microcontroller. In general, CNNs still reign supreme on microcontrollers since you have a way lower peak memory demand which is what usually kills you. Here in this case you have a couple of _kilobytes_ of SRAM, potentially extendable to a couple of megabytes of PSRAM. Even for small CNNs you often need to do some quite complex interleaving of layers (i.e. running parts of layer 1 and layer 2 in parallel interleaved to take advantage of the downsampling of CNNs) to keep performance and memory impact reasonable (see e.g. https://openreview.net/pdf?id=2O8qbyxH6X https://openreview.net/pdf?id=2O8qbyxH6X). Think more "image classifier" less "run an image to image transformer". For depth anything, a single layer's activation is probably significantly larger than the available SRAM (I think it is (224/16)^2 patches each with activations [48, 96, 192, 384] for depth anything small: You aren't running this.)

system2 4mo ago

I wish Espressif was an American company and publicly traded. I'd invest heavily. I have nothing but good things to say about their products. Their product naming could be better; S3 is going to show S31 in the search results.

nancyminusone 4mo ago
if it were American it probably would have been hostile-takeovered by Qualcomm or someone else and tightened down long ago.
- nottorp 4mo ago
  To elaborate, all their documentation would be behind a login that has to be manually approved and they wouldn't talk to you unless you ordered 1 million pieces.
superloika 4mo ago
Public companies only bring ruin.

lucamark 4mo ago

Great to hear the adoption of RISC-V across the ESP32 line. The old Xtensa-based parts were fine, but RISC-V should make tooling, compiler support, and long-term ecosystem work cleaner

einpoklum 4mo ago

I'm the maintainer of a standalone printf library, targeting mostly embedded devices and other no-standard-library use cases: https://github.com/eyalroz/printf/ https://github.com/eyalroz/printf/ I would like to make sure the library can be used on this SoC, and other RISC-V systems; which it probably can, but if there are any issues cross-compiling for it, or using the toolchain Espressif provides, please consider filing a bug report on GitHub at the link above. Same of course goes for any FOSS librar/tool that you're trying out. Let's help foster a rich(er) ecosystem of software available on these babies!

thot_experiment 4mo ago

This is so sick except it only has 2 pulse counters instead of the 4 on the S3 which means I can't use it as a drop in replacement on my current project. Not really complaining, I cut my teeth as an embedded dev on the ESP8266 and for years now all of my personal projects (and a fair few professional ones) have been based on the ESP32 line of chips. They're all pretty incredible for the cost, absolutely my favorite embedded target.

cbdevidal 4mo ago

I personally am itching for more hardware H.264 or even H.265. There's the ESP32-P4 but it requires a second ESP32 to handle the WiFi. I got it working, but it feels like a hack, and the BOM cost is more than 2x a single chip. Course more PSRAM and hardware encoding would drive up the price...

redfast00 4mo ago

From the datasheet, I see that there is a Bitscrambler peripheral that seems to be very similar in flexibility to the Raspberry Pi Pico's PIO: > Since bitwise operations can be relatively CPU-intensive and DMA is designed specifically to offload such work from the CPU, ESP32-S31 integrates two dedicated peripherals called BitScramblers. These modules are designed to transform data formats during transfers between memory and peripherals. One BitScrambler handles memory-to-peripheral (or memory-to-memory) transfers, while the other is dedicated to peripheral-to-memory transfers. While BitScramblers can handle the bitwise operations mentioned earlier, they are in fact flexible, programmable state machines capable of performing more advanced transformations as well. Here's hoping that it's as useful as the Pi Pico's PIO

utopcell 4mo ago
neat!

snvzz 4mo ago

Meanwhile, Texas Instruments[0]... 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48378136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48378136

snvzz 4mo ago
better yet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48386133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48386133

george_max 4mo ago

It's good news Espressif is using RISC-V over something like Xtensa; it's much more open and flexible. Excited to play around with this

jareklupinski 4mo ago

> Bluetooth 5.4 LE Audio enables high-quality, low-power streaming with LC3 codec and multi-stream audio finally i can make party mode home speaker arrays

MrBuddyCasino 4mo ago
Is that really what multi-stream is?
- jareklupinski 4mo ago
  guess i'll find out :)

v1ne 4mo ago

It's sad to see Xtensa go. Their architecture was a clean design, a treat to read the assembly code. I get it, RISC-V comes without licensing costs, but that's one of the few positive things about it. For a fresh start, it is just already in this "we pile stuff on stuff on stuff" state that you expect of an architecture after 10-20 years of productive use.

MrBuddyCasino 4mo ago
The inevitable result of Risc-v trying to be everything to everyone, so everything is half-baked.

dsign 4mo ago

I very much respect Espressif products, specially because how good their documentation is. I wish though somebody would package an ESP board with 256 Mb of RAM or more... From what I've seen, that amount of RAM seems to be exclusive Linux SBC territory, but Linux doesn't make sense for a lot of projects.

andynerd 4mo ago
Sadly this S31 can address up to 64 MiB of PSRAM at most. And only 32 MiB SKU has been released.

rbanffy 4mo ago

These little devices are extremely interesting. I have a side project I will one day get started - to place 32 SoCs (or fewer SoCs with more cores), connect them via PCB traces to an ethernet hub (I need to learn how to do that), and leave one or more "upstream" network ports for connecting multiple boards together. Each core would light up a red LED on the front-side of the board via 90-degree LED holders. Then I'd pack 16 of them, and build a tiny Connection Machine cube. Not sure what I'd use a cluster of 512 very puny servers for though... I guess it'd be for learning how to manage clusters with unreasonable numbers of nodes.

goodpoint 4mo ago
little?
- rbanffy 4mo ago
  Once I figure out how to join that many cores via ethernet on PCB, it's a little project. SMD soldering should not be that troublesome.
  - throwup238 4mo ago
    What are you having trouble figuring out? ESP32 RGMII (32x) -> PHY (32x RTL8211F) -> Slave switch (6x RTL8367) -> master switch (1x) -> magnetics (for the external port). You’ll probably want a better IC for the master switch so I can’t name one of the top of my head but this would be a relatively simple, if large, PCB. The hard part I think is verifying that all the PHYs and switches will work correctly without magnetics on a board to board connection.
    - rbanffy 4mo ago
      The SoC (I was thinking about the Octavo parts) has two ethernet interfaces. We attach the interfaces to the RTL8211 and then to the switch (or do we need RTL8211s there as well? Is there a switch chip that can operate directly with the SoC ethernet ports? I am way out of my depth here. I actively avoided analog design in college, and it kind of shows. :-(