Every now and then there’s a part that comes along which is hotly anticipated, but which understandably its manufacturer remains tight-lipped about in order to preserve maximum impact surrounding its launch. Right now that’s Espressif’s ESP32-P4: a powerful application processor with dual-core 400 MHz and a single-core low power 40 MHz RISC-V processors. Interestingly it doesn’t appear to have the radios which have been a feature of previous ESP parts, but it makes up for those with a much more comprehensive array of peripherals.
Some details are beginning to emerge, whether from leaks or in preparation for launch, including the first signs of support in their JTAG tool, and a glimpse in a video from another Chinese company of a development board. We got our hopes up a little when we saw the P4 appearing in some Espressif documentation, but on closer examination there’s nothing there yet about the interesting new peripherals.
Looking at the dev board and the video we can see some of what the thing is capable of as it drives a large touchscreen and a camera. There are two MIPI DSI/CSI ports on the PCB, as well as three USB ports and a sound codec. A more run-of-the-mill ESP32-C3 is present we think to provide wireless networking, and there’s a fourth USB port which we are fairly certain is in fact only for serial communications via a what our best blurry photograph reading tells us is a Silicon Labs USB-to-serial chip. Finally there’s large Raspberry Pi-style header which appears to carry all the GPIOs and other pins. We’ve placed the video below the break, if you see anything we’ve missed please tell us in the comments.
We first covered this chip back in January, and then as now we’re looking forward to seeing what our community does with it.
another vid here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTHHDZeIzcA
This video of Espressif is much more informative than the one in the article above, apparently they are not so tight lipped as stated.
Video came out 2 days ago. Part was announced over a year ago with very little details. The tight-lipped assessment is accurate.
Thanks. The video ends with showing Wifi 6 and thread/zigbee. Does the P4 have wifi or not?
I wouldn’t get your hopes up
It does not. That will be handled by a secondary ESP, possibly connected wia SDIO.
I do wish manufacturers would think about their part numbering a little bit.
ESP32 is a wifi-capable microcontroller module.
Except, now ESP32-P4 is a microcontroller without the wifi.
That is not correct, the ESP32-H2 already didn’t have wifi.
I’m pretty sure they thought about it and decide to ride the ESP name for fame and glory. End user can just shove it.
i believe EPS is short for Espressif ?
So should they rename company for every new chip ? :D
I believe EPS is actually an acronym for the power conduits on Federation spaceships. I’m not sure what the letters actually stand for there. You’re right though that ESP is probably a shortening of Expressif.
expressif, if you want your “coffee, black”
The other video from Expresif shows “Wifi 6 and thread/zigbee” – so does it have radios or not?
Watch the other video to find out.
Try and think what “ESP32” is meant to mean.
It means 32 bit MCUs made by Espressif, nothing more. They also have other ESP32 modules without wifi already.
It really isn’t that hard to remember what the different product lines are. The S series is their medium performance line, with wifi and sometimes Bluetooth. The C series is their lower performance RISC-V line. The H series is like the C series but for Bluetooth and thread, zigbee or similar. Now their P series is for high performance RISC-V MCUs with no built in radio.
Just because you associate ESP32 with being a wifi capable MCU that doesn’t mean that is what the name is supposed to mean and it doesn’t mean your association with the name is correct.
ESP32 is the name of a line of chips, not the name of a wifi-capable microcontroller module.
Does the P4 have an advertised graphics/drawing accelerator? Otherwise I foresee any attempt at a UI on a screen that size being as sluggish as in the video.
Because we can’t edit comments, I’ll add that it does.
Looking at that features video, I’m a bit sad that it still doesn’t support CAN-FD.
According to the details they released recently, it will have 3x TWAI channels, TWAI is “Two Wire Automotive Interface” which is CAN FD.
Most likely they renamed their CAN interface so they don’t get sued or something.
Almost all ESP chips support TWAI
Twai doesn’t accept can-fd frames, only can
Yeah TWAI is only CAN, not CAN-FD.
Thanks! You are correct, and I have learned something new today :)
Having learned something new today, I thought I would take it a step further and do more research.
They will likely add CAN-FD around 2034.
The CAN-FD patent will expire then. They added TWAI because CAN as a trademark is still active but the patent for the protocol expired in 2014.
It can be expected that when CAN-FD is no longer covered by it’s 20 year patent (patented in 2014) that it may be available in ESP chips.
They can pay the license fee, but it will drive up the cost of the ESP chips significantly.
Reference:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160080168
” Interestingly it doesn’t appear to have the radios which have been a feature of previous ESP parts” ….. so what’s that thing in the top right corner with an antenna attached?
It’s a radio.
As the article mentions, an ESP32-C3.
It’s another esp32 to provide wifi on this particular development board. Not part of the esp32-p4.
maybe read the entire article before commenting👍 it says they used an esp32-c3 for the wireless communications, which often comes in a preassembled shielded package with a pcb antenna.
I generally read the comments before the article. If the comments are interesting, I’ll then read the article. I think this time, I simply forgot to read the article.
“A more run-of-the-mill ESP32-C3 is present we think to provide wireless networking”
“A more run-of-the-mill ESP32-C3 is present we think to provide wireless networking”
That’s a separate esp32 module with wifi. But there is no wifi on-board, you need a separate solution for that.
I lost interest as soon as I saw that it doesn’t have the radios. An ESP32 without radios is not an ESP32, it’s just another microcontroller…
Considering the name “ESP32” is likely meant to mean 32 bit MCUs made by Espressif, it absolutely still is an ESP32.
Espressif without radios? It may be a turning point for the market the same way RP2040 was; looking forward to it.
As I said before: they iterate through all possible variants their designers can do with their knowledge, tools and licenses. Just keep the fab building and hope that someone might jump on the train.
I don’t mind it, their software support quite decent. For all my hobby work, I prefer espressif parts. Unfortunately their low power performance is very bad, so I have to use Nordic Semi parts (which also have decent software support but don’t have the advantage of a strong community)
I’ve got an ESP32C6 heading towards ~4ma with radios on and a power LED. That’s not Nordic territory. What can a Nordic do while still doing BLE ADV say with a ~500ms interval
Yet another OpenOCD fork, it’s such a pain to contribute to this project that it should entirely be rewritten in Python.
Like PyOCD?
Espressif Systems is leading the industry. Hard to keep up.
They prefix so many parts “ESP32” yet they are quite different- very confusing.
I can’t make sense of the product lineup and their website has no matrix.
What’s a WROOM, WROVER, C3, S3, C6, V3 UGH!
Now I see a ESP32 PICO-V3 or V4 over the D4, ESP32 ECO V3 etc. – it’s terrible.
Unless someone can explain their nutty part names?
Is RISC-V the future? Is there s reason why Chinese companies are pushing it so aggressively, even though the demand is definitely not particularly high…
RISC-V is open source so no licensing required. And it’s less likely to be embargoed, where arm might be. It isn’t bad, but ARM cores generally perform better on speed/power. Nice that it exists though even if it acts as a cost competitor to keep ip licensing costs reasonable.
Not really, but you are mixing their chips, modules and boards. Their modules page describe the chips and modules well.
https://www.espressif.com/en/products/modules
Oh that was very complicated:
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/v4.3.1/esp32/hw-reference/modules-and-boards.html
All “ESP32” means is 32 bit MCUs made by Espressif, so the name is accurate and they are probably unlikely to change it. It’s no different to “STM32”.
I believe the names like “WROOM”, “WROVER” and “PICO” are just names for their pre built modules with flash, sometimes ram, antennas, etc going off of their website: https://www.espressif.com/en/products/modules/esp32
You can look up the module name and find what specific MCU they are using but I believe they all use just the base ESP32.
The single letter plus number names are their MCUs, like the S3 is the S series major version 3 (although they do skip numbers sometimes). The S series are their mainstream processors, wifi Bluetooth and reasonably powerful processors with lots of peripherals. You could effectively think of the base ESP32 as the ESP32S1 as it seems to belong to that series with the processor it uses and it’s capabilities. The C series is less powerful and has less peripherals but uses a RISC-V processor and has wifi and Bluetooth, wifi 6 for the newer ones. The H series is like the C series but swaps wifi for thread, zigbee or similar. The new P series is for high performance RISC-V processors with no wireless capabilities it would seem.
I don’t think the naming is that bad (except for modules) as once you know what the series are it becomes quite clear.
While you can get 64bit MCUs with a STM32 name .. how awesome is that for naming /s
stm32mp2 is a 64 bit MPU😅
Take your time, their names are actually pretty sensible since the feature sets do vary.
Cx = RISC-V primarily
Sx = performance oriented
PICO = surface mount
WROOM = bigger, easiest to solder (get it… room) – doesn’t have to surface mount
WROVER = Wireless Room with RAM Overlay – has extra RAM
Px = better-than-S performance oriented, probably no radios
Mango Pi recently evaluated … and returned to Amazon.
Reasons: Mango Pi image links didn’t work.
dietpi booted, then locked-up with blue screen.
We have ~5 sipeed Allwinner D1 nonocomputers.
64 bit floating point reason.
Appears sipeed is TRYING to use the Arduino IDE?
Unable to get any working … yet.
See sipeed Arduino updates
ARM A53 Orange Pi zero 2W, Banana PI M4 zero, Libre Le Potator/Renegade, Raspberry Pi 4B 64 bit systems all work.
All work with FireFox, Chromium, python3, gcc,, gedit, … and other complicated software.
RISC-V platforms unable to implement all of this complicated software?
RISC-V better suited to embedded controller apps using Arduino IDE?
> RISC-V platforms unable to implement all of this complicated software?
I believe it is less a matter of ability and more a matter of support and time. I don’t know of any Pi clone that is as well supported as the original Raspberry Pi’s are. (granted, this is hearsay, since I haven’t actually used any of the clones myself.) Additionally, ARM based systems have the benefit of being decently well supported even before RISC-V silicon *existed*. So, RISC-V platforms are *very* much in an early adopter phase, even if they are (if i remember correctly) actively being used by Nvidia in their graphics cards for their GSP.
There is a whole lot more that can go wrong in the chain of Firefox depending on the Operating System depending on the Hardware than there is for the chain of Embedded Application depending on the (less complicated) Hardware that means there are more bugs to iron out. Assumptions made in various software that holds for existing platforms, and not new ones. Hell: you don’t even need to change CPU architecture in order to surface bugs and assumptions in software. Just look at Asahi Linux on Apple silicon, which has the same architecture as a Raspberry Pi (aarch64), but still has a bunch of stuff break because it requires a 16k page size, and the only reason that things are getting fixed is because of concerted community effort.
> RISC-V better suited to embedded controller apps using Arduino IDE?
In summary, maybe for now, because there are less issues and more control that happens when writing an “embedded controller application.” But the early adopter phase in other spaces is still critical so that those issues can be ironed out.
If you email them they will send you the datasheet. I have it on my laptop. It’s a beast!