Unsupported CPUs / Boards

RISC-V keeps on delivering on it’s promise of diversifying the chip market.

Bluetrum has announced the AB5301A MCU designed for audio players.

It’s available on the AB32VG1 board and has support in RT-Thread.

  • 120 MHz RISC-V
  • 192k RAM
  • 1 MiB Flash
  • Bluetooth 5.0
  • FM radio receiver
  • USB 2.0 Host & Device support
  • 16 bit DAC, up to 48 kHz

No pricing or availability information yet.

This might be a low hanging fruit based on EFR32MG21:

Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle

itead, $6.99

I intent to assign porting RIOT to the RPi Pico as a software project. So if anyone is interested in this and willing to join forces, give me a ping.

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There is also now an Adafruit Feather wtih the RPi Pico chip: The Feather RP2040. Pretty affordable compared to other Feathers too.

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Aaaaand it’s out of stock, wonder how long that took

From Europe it makes more sense to order via Mouser anyways :wink:

I add the nrf53 here, due to an issue we have on this forum.. The nRF5340 DK is a development board for the MCU.

Microchip just releases a new WiFi MCU -> WFI32E01PC using a PIC32MZW1

more info here -> https://www.microchip.com/Developmenttools/ProductDetails/EV12F11A

LoDev S76S. Its based on AcSIP LoRaWAN module S76S . AcSIP seems to have good inventory even in these times of silicon shortage. Once ported, maybe a good option for LoRaWAN prototyping.

yes the adafruit rp2040 would be my favourite target - with a plug-in transceiver thats already supported :wink:

There are more RISC-V boards available:

ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1

Mouser, 6.78 €

  • 160 MHz RISC-V
  • 384k ROM + 4 MiB SPI Flash
  • 400k RAM
  • WiFi & Bluetooth

Hi3861 Development Board

AliExpress, $26

  • 160 MHz Hi3861
  • 288k ROM + 2 MiB SPI Flash
  • 352k RAM
  • WiFi
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So very confusing for espressif to create a RISC-V system with the name “ESP32”! (But at that price… wow)

The Hi3861 is now also available on the cheaper HarmonyOS development for $11.

But there are also new chips: QinHeng Electronics replaced the Cortex-M0 on their designs with a RISC-V CPU to create e.g. the CH573 MCU:

It’s a very low-end chip, but comes with BLE 4.2 and USB. There is a dev board available:

CH573 Devboard

AliExpress 17€

  • 20 MHz RISC-V IMAC
  • 18k RAM
  • 512k ROM
  • BLE 4.2
  • USB 2.0

M5Stamp C3

This is a neat little board with an ESP32C3, which is the new RISC-V based member of the ESP32 family

m5stack $6

  • 160 MHz RISC-V
  • 400k RAM + 8k RTC RAM
  • 384k ROM + 4 MiB Flash
  • 2.4 GHz WiFi (b/g/n)
  • Bluetooth 5

via CNX Software

NUCLEO-U575ZI-Q

ST released their new line of ultra-low power MCUs accompanied by the usual dev boards like the NUCLEO-U575ZI-Q.

  • STM32U575ZI (160 MHz Cortex-M33)
  • 786k RAM + 2k backup RAM
  • 2 MiB ROM
  • 19.5 μA/MHz in RUN mode, 440 nA in Standby mode with RTC running

Mouser 20€

You can now buy boards with the BL702 (RISC-V, 802.15.4 radio) based on the XT-ZB1 module:

AliExpress 2€

  • 144MHz RISC-V
  • 132KB RAM
  • 192KB ROM
  • BLE 5.0
  • IEEE 802.15.4

There is an SDK with an IEEE 802.15.4 example, the radio driver appears to be a blob though :frowning:

sipeed released a micro sized board off the BL702 chip… apparently they are developing their own env… so that now the wireless drivers and blob should now be accessible? https://twitter.com/SipeedIO/status/1598121931798376450

Hi there!

I found a cheap chinese MCU board with WiFi+Bluetooth support:

MicroWinner W801. Based on C-SKY architecture. 2.5$ Aliexpress.com

  • 240MHz C-SKY MCU
  • 288RAM + 2MB Flash
  • PSRAM SPI/QSPI
  • WiFi
  • Bluetooth BLE 4.2
  • SDIO
  • Encrypting features: RSA/AES/RC4/DES/3DES/RC4/SHA1/MD5/CRC8/CRC16/CRC32/TRNG
  • RTC module

SDK with examples: github

Chinese RM is difficult to read but the board has many features for RIOT. Also exists W806 version without wireless interfaces and W800 - only chip in QFN32 with WIFI+BLE.

Would it be an idea to put all these suggested boards in a Google Spreadsheet where their implementation (or availability) status can be tracked?

Because some of the earlier suggested boards in this thread are now already economically deprecated, because their prices have skyrocketted during the chip-crisis. I don’t think it’s worthwhile to still create implementations for those. On the other hand, others still are relevant and it’d be useful to have a clear overview of the progress of each one.

The Riotee boards look nice, not only due to their name: these’d be great for showing off how we’re energy efficient with ztimer now.

They consist of

  • an SMD module (sadly not OSHW), featuring an nRF52833, an MPP converter, and FRAM in the form of a MSP430FR5962, a low-power programmable RTC and generally low board voltage (2V)
  • a board that adds a CMSIS-DAP debugger and pin headers
  • shields for solar cells, capacitors and sensors

Hi, Google had annonced a brand new MCU board for AI@Extreme Edge : The Google Coral Dev Board Micro is a microcontroller board with a dual-core MCU (NXP i.MX RT1176 (Cortex-M7 and Cortex-M4)), Coral Edge TPU (4 TFlops INT8 for 2W), a Himax HM01B0 CMOS color camera (324 x 324 px or QVGA (320 x 240 px); 110º diagonal FOV; ƒ/2.0 focal ratio; Fixed focus), a PDM microphone, user and reset buttons, four LEDs and 2 GPIO headers with 12 pins (digital, analog, and power pins). OS is FreeRTOS. It provides TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers to execute ML and DL models on either the MCU or with acceleration on the Edge TPU

The CH32V208 is a 144 Mhz RISC-V BLE (5.3) MCU for 1.0 USD (1k units) to 1.5 USD

Available on LCSC

Evaluation boards can be bought for around 10 USD on Aliexpress. grafik

SDK is available on Github. Apparently with integrations into FreeRTOS and Harmony OS.

Documents and specs are available on their website.