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Posted by volemo 1 hour ago

ESP32-S31(www.espressif.com)
95 points | 35 comments
jml7c5 1 minute ago|
Previous discussion from two months ago, when this was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561678
zuzululu 1 minute ago||
How do I order a few samples, seem like there is a MOQ ?

Also I want to dive into hardware stuff but I'm always clueless as to what I do afterwards when this would arrive? Are you using a generic board or are you ordering and designing PCBs to hook this up to?

What are you using it for ? How do I go from a prototype to mass production via kickstarter?

oritron 17 minutes ago||
The specs look great, will see how long it takes to get these as WROOM modules or on little dev boards; my two form factors of choice for Espressif devices. I'm also curious about the pricing, so far they've impressed me with how much more you get in successive generations at a similar price.

If you're excited about the (relatively) speedy RISC-V cores and SIMD, look at the P4 which is available now. It has a slightly faster clock but no wireless: https://products.espressif.com/#/product-comparison?names=ES...

There's some cool work out there using the dsp functionality and built in image handling to crunch a lot of pixel data, which should work similarly on the S31: https://www.reddit.com/r/WLED/comments/1ry2jd7/wledmmp4_with...

randomint64 56 minutes ago||
Espressif is on fire! And the CPU even has SIMD instructions!

RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems because now compiling for SoCs is only a matter of `rustup target add riscv32imac-unknown-none-elf` instead of downloading half-broken proprietary toolchains and SDKs.

Take a look at https://kerkour.com/introduction-to-embedded-development-wit... and https://kerkour.com/rust-esp32-pentest to get started with modern (Rust ;) embedded development.

phkahler 26 minutes ago||
>> And the CPU even has SIMD instructions!

Yes, but it looks like there is no hardware floating point. The description of the CORDIC module indicates fixed-point calculations, which is consistent with the lack of any reference to floating point.

I am happy the have CAN-FD and Motor PWM module, but nowhere did I see conversion times listed for the ADC. For motor control I demand 1uS conversion time or less, and in the last year I've switched from fixed point to floating point after holding off on that switch for ~15 years.

polpo 8 minutes ago|||
From the ESP32-S31 datasheet: "Single-precision floating-point unit (FPU) per core"
NooneAtAll3 17 minutes ago|||
where did you find cordic mention?
Havoc 8 minutes ago|||
Nice. Been meaning to try rust on these sort of devices but the riscv I saw thus far seemed to be mixed arm and riscv which seemed weird
cassepipe 32 minutes ago|||
Curious: What does the "imac" stand for in the architecture target name ?
mentalpagefault 24 minutes ago|||
IMAC are the RISC-V extensions supported:

I = Base integer instruction set, 32-bit

M = Standard extension for integer multiplication and division

A = Standard extension for atomic instructions

C = Standard extension for compressed instructions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V#ISA_base_and_extensions

cassepipe 4 minutes ago||
Thanks.I can't believe they chose non-arcane, memory-friendly letters. Kind of rare in naming hardware I feel (unless it's not ?)
JdeBP 26 minutes ago||||
There are a few lettered extensions to the base RV32I instruction set. e.g.:

* https://docs.riscv.org/reference/isa/unpriv/m-st-ext.html

NooneAtAll3 17 minutes ago|||
where did you find it?
tosh 31 minutes ago||
very interesting, do you have a pointer with more info on what kind of SIMD support it has?
bobmcnamara 6 minutes ago||
Hopefully comparable or better than ESP32S3.

But with the weird alignment thing fixed

mort96 5 minutes ago||
This looks like the long-awaited replacement for the original ESP32. The S and C series have been relatively low performance (the S better than the C but stuck on the outgoing Xtensa architecture), the P4 is powerful but lacks wireless. This is a relatively high performance, dual core MCU with wireless; a nice default option for low volume designs where being able to copy a previous implementation is more important than saving a few cents. Just like the ESP32. Nice.
orphea 5 minutes ago||
It being RISC-V is awesome, but how does it make sense that it's S series when S series have been Xtensa cores? Why is it not C series?
Aurornis 36 minutes ago||
Good to have WiFi and wired ethernet on the same part again.

Although we lost the MIPI support that the P4 dual-core RISC-V line has.

tetris11 15 minutes ago|
How does wired internet technically work on these chips? Is it just 8 dedicated GPIO pins?
hart_russell 10 minutes ago||
Any reason why this device wouldn't have Z-Wave? Is the wireless protocol significantly different than Thread and Zigbee?
mherkender 4 minutes ago||
I don't know for sure but Bluetooth, WiFi and Zigbee are on the same frequency band. Z-Wave is not.

(at least in the US, not sure about other countries)

Aurornis 7 minutes ago||
This device only has a 2.4GHz radio. Z-Wave is sub-1GHz.
frikk 28 minutes ago||
I've been building hobby LED art projects with WLED (exclusively built on the ESP32 platform). It's been a blast. These little boards are so powerful and the open source community continues to amaze me.

My preferred controller platform is of the QuinLED line - comes with power distribution, voltage regulators, fat copper lines, configurable data-line resistors, and smart auxiliary hardware support all for an affordable $30-$50 per controller. (quinled.info)

<https://kno.wled.ge/> - WLED homepage and probably my favorite clever URL of all time.

skybrian 29 minutes ago|
I'm interested in audio out because I dabble in musical instruments.

What's the state of Bluetooth audio out on microcontrollers? Is low latency and high quality output possible?

oritron 12 minutes ago||
Low latency in Bluetooth audio comes down to codecs and the best are proprietary.

If you want to really cut down latency and need wireless with hardware like this, you could use a second ESP32 and send your own bitstream between them.

tliltocatl 13 minutes ago|||
Is there any reason you want wireless? Bluetooth audio is a disaster, AFAIK. You don't want to use it for music. Just go wired, the ether is too cramped already.
hackingonempty 19 minutes ago||
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