ESP32-S2 single core lower cost model announced - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: thmjpr
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 06:30:56 am
content: https://www.espressif.com/en/news/espressif-announces-%E2%80%A8esp32-s2-secure-wi-fi-mcuQuoteApparently they already released a single core version last year:https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Espressif-Systems/ESP32-SOLO-1?qs=w%2Fv1CP2dgqpIFRWX9FvikA==https://blog.hackster.io/a-cheaper-single-core-esp32-module-53fa9c4143b5ESP8266 is about $1 in low quantities (maybe less?), ESP32 chip is $2.50. So I would think it would fall somewhere between the two.Or digikey prices:https://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/espressif-systems/ESP8266EX/1904-1001-2-ND/8028401$1.85https://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/espressif-systems/ESP32-D0WD/1904-1003-1-ND/8028410$3.50trend vs 8266:https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=esp32,esp8266Is USB OTG that useful here?

author: PCB.Wiz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 06:56:37 am
content: It also saysEngineering Samples of ESP32-S2 beta will be available in Juneso still a little ways from being a real stocked product.

author: Dielectric
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 02:32:29 pm
content: Sure, USB OTG is actually a great addition. Almost every board has some kind of USB->UART chip on there, if they give us USB CDC support then those parts can go away. USB Mass Storage would be neat too, if they're really going all-in with OTG and implementing USB Host support.I wonder if they'll upgrade the ADC? It's a little funny to use. A basic 12-bit SAR like all of the M-class ARMs have would be better.Blows my mind that we'll get an even cheaper ESP32. They're stupid-cheap as it is.

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 04:04:31 pm
content: Did anyone decap it yet? Locking one of the cores and some ram/rom for internal use is the easy way of quickly introducing new "secure" product. Price drop might be just a function of economies of scale.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 04:06:55 pm
content: USB Host support (even if just for flash drives) at that price point would be a great addition for many applications.

author: lucazader
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 07:43:32 pm
content: This chip is actually usign the newer LX7 core rather than the LX6 in the currently released esp32 variants.However you may still be right, this might be a cut down version of a more beefy chip, eg maybe the full chip is a daul core with bluetooth, but they yeilds on the second core, or the bluetooth section are low, so they are disabling them for now and releasing this chip?Who knows?

author: PCB.Wiz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 08:49:26 pm
content: Quote from: Dielectric on May 21, 2019, 02:32:29 pmYup, shame it is only FS-USB tho (12MHz) and not HS-USB (480MHz), as that rather limits the much higher WiFi speed the rest of the device can support.I've seen a couple of WiFi parts spec HS-USB which seems a better match. Likely comes down to price, but if someone else does HS-USB they could get better volumes....

author: lucazader
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2019, 07:48:44 pm
content: When they were asking the community about more features or upgrades to a next gen chip they got a lot of suggestions.a few have been included.However they did say that putting a HS phy in the chip would ahve taken a very large area of silicon compared to the FS phy. So their engineers opted for that instead. I tried to convince them to at least implement a ULPI interface like on most higher end ST chips, but it looks like they didn't end up doing that.As far as the ADC, lots of user requested a better performing ADC, that was much more linear, so I'm hoping they have improved that.It does suck that they have removed bluetooth, at least for my use case. However i will be the first to admit, having ble capability in the chip, but then having the minimum power consumption with bluetooth on of ~15-20mA (thats what it curretly is) isn't super ideal.

author: OwO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2019, 03:07:48 am
content: Quote from: lucazader on May 22, 2019, 07:48:44 pmThe original ESP32 is already very cheap, I just wish they would release a $5 mega-esp32 that has everything. External USB PHY is the way of the past, it uses way too many pins and takes up too much board area.