Waveshare Electronics' ESP32-C6-DEV-KIT-N8 Is a Low-Cost, Impressively-Capable RISC-V Dev Board
With a single 32-bit RISC-V core running at up to 160MHz, 8MB of off-chip flash, and three radios, this sub-$10 board packs in the features.
Waveshare Electronics has announced the launch of a low-cost, compact Internet of Things (IoT) development board featuring a RISC-V processor core — built around the Espressif ESP32-C6 system-on-module (SOM).
"The ESP32-C6-DEV-KIT-N8 is an entry-level RISC-V microcontroller development board integrating Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 and IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee 3.0 and Thread) [radios]," the company writes of the new development board, brought to our attention by Linux Gizmos. "It is compact in size and powerful, with multiple peripheral interfaces. Suitable for smart home, industrial automation, healthcare, consumer electronics and other applications."
The heart of the compact breadboard-friendly board is, as the name implies, the Espressif ESP32-C6-WROOM-1-N8 module, which provides a single 32-bit RISC-V processor core running at up to 160MHz, 512kB of high-power static RAM (SRAM) and 16kB of low-power SRAM, and 320kB of on-chip flash alongside 8MB of external flash.
Designed for use on a breadboard or as a surface-mount module, the board features castellated pin headers to its longer edges exposing 23 pulse-width modulation (PWM)-capable general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins of which eight can be used in the chip's low-power modes and seven act as analog inputs. There's a USB Type-C connector for data and power, physical boot-select and reset buttons, and a user-addressable RGB LED.
The board is now available to buy on the Waveshare store, priced at $6.99 with bare headers or $7.99 with pin headers already soldered into place, both before volume discounts.