LILYGO Launches Its First Espressif ESP32-C3 Module, the Compact T-32C3
Designed for surface mounting onto a carrier board, this compact module includes 4MB of external flash storage.
Espressif's ESP32-C3, a pin-compatible alternative to the popular ESP8266 that makes the move to the free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture, is now available in a compact module from LILYGO: the T-32C3.
Espressf's ESP32-C3 leaked late last year ahead of its official launch as the company's successor to the popular ESP8266, swapping out the Tensilica microcontroller core for one based on the RISC-V architecture. While the part was designed to be pin-compatible with its predecessor, it took a while for designs integrating the chip to appear on the market.
LILYGO launched its own ESP32-C3 development board earlier this year, the TTGO T-OI PLUS, and now it's back with a compact surface-mount module designed for integration into carrier board designs: the LILYGO T-32C3.
First spotted by CNX Software, the module — slightly bigger than the last joint of your thumb — includes an Espressif ESP32-C3 running at 160MHz, 400kB of static RAM, an additional 8kB of SRAM for the real-time clock, 384kB of flash, and both 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (BLE) with Bluetooth Mesh support.
To the base specifications LILYGO has added 4MB of external flash, an on-board PCB antenna, and 22 castellated input/output pins which offer 20 general-purpose signals, three 12-bit analog inputs, SPI, UART, and I2C, plus strangely undocumented USB connectivity.
The modules are now available on AliExpress, priced at just $2.79 each.