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ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

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Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#41

Post by phkahler »

snvzz wrote: post #34
4778468d wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s all about the software & documentation. There’s lots of “competitors” to esp32, pretty much none of them except STM have the software for developers, which makes their offerings close to useless. The only way to gain critical mass is relentless deep commitment to developer tools/libraries and documentation. In many cases these competitors actually try to hide their documentation and keep secret how their chips w…

>stm gd32v is a stm32 (peripherals, memory map) clone, except using risc-v rather than arm.

That is going to put a dent in ARMs revenue. Even if that particular chip isn't a big seller, it means ST now has a drop-in replacement for ARM in their other SoCs. Soon people will realize that ISA is often irrelevant, but the peripherals, libraries, and tools are.

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#42

Post by phkahler »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #36
meekrohprocess wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interrupts and exceptions can happen at any point in a program's execution on a microcontroller, and they are free to modify memory and peripheral registers. >Load >Modify register in memory >>Interrupt happens and changes >Write incorrect value back to . These sorts of bugs can be pernicious to debug, and they are easy for novice developers to create.

That's horrifying. What is the fix/mitigation if you don't have proper atomics? I can't see how to properly avoid that.

Only communicate in one direction. I write, you read. I can also provide a large coherent set of data so long as you dont read it until I mark it as ready. There are many other ways too.

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#43

Post by AlotOfReading »

ducktective wrote: post #35
AlotOfReading wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty uncharitable description, but yeah. There are only two types of companies that do this though: companies where they're working at such a scale that spending a few extra months to years of developer time doesn't make a dent compared to the BOM savings. You're more likely to get vendor support by name recognition at these kinds of companies, so it's not as bad as the hobbyist experience. The second kind i…

Is it even possible to make as much as the hype fields (webdev, data science, ML) in embedded? Is there opportunities for startups in HW sector?

If you're doing automation of some kind in the bay, embedded has roughly comparable payscales to other dev jobs. Beyond that, no. You'll generally be paid slightly less than webdevs (but still far more than most engineers make).

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#44

Post by pjc50 »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #3

> Pricing will also be similar to ESP8266. How can they possibly sell these chips at these prices? This is impossibly cheap. You can’t even accuse them of trying to flood and control the market because they already own the market!

I'm not sure people realize how cheap small chips are that aren't on the bleeding edge of the process.

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#45

Post by ducktective »

phkahler wrote: post #41
snvzz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>stm gd32v is a stm32 (peripherals, memory map) clone, except using risc-v rather than arm.

That is going to put a dent in ARMs revenue. Even if that particular chip isn't a big seller, it means ST now has a drop-in replacement for ARM in their other SoCs. Soon people will realize that ISA is often irrelevant, but the peripherals, libraries, and tools are.

I'm not so sure. About ISA there is this : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24958423

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#46

Post by ducktective »

taf2 wrote: post #28
nrp wrote: post #17

Espressif is no longer alone in the ultra low cost hobby WiFi SoC space. Pine has started working with the Bouffalo BL602 which seems to be a fairly similar RISC-V powered part: https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/10/28/the-quest-for-a-blob... It will be interesting to see which one gains critical mass in community use.

Agreed having recently bought an esp32 s2 board it does not yet have platform io support so I put the board aside and figure I’ll come back to it in 6 months and see if that is updated.

To my understanding, PlatformIO is (merely) a set of scripts to handle multiple toolchains and HALs in a consistent way. In esp32-s2 case, it means integrating ESP-IDF only. What stops you from directly invoking cmake using the ESP-IDF?

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#47

Post by monocasa »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #36
meekrohprocess wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interrupts and exceptions can happen at any point in a program's execution on a microcontroller, and they are free to modify memory and peripheral registers. >Load >Modify register in memory >>Interrupt happens and changes >Write incorrect value back to . These sorts of bugs can be pernicious to debug, and they are easy for novice developers to create.

That's horrifying. What is the fix/mitigation if you don't have proper atomics? I can't see how to properly avoid that.

You just guard those sequences by disabling and reenabling interrupts around them. It's a very common pattern in systems not designed for SMP.

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#48

Post by ckocagil »

phkahler wrote: post #41
snvzz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>stm gd32v is a stm32 (peripherals, memory map) clone, except using risc-v rather than arm.

That is going to put a dent in ARMs revenue. Even if that particular chip isn't a big seller, it means ST now has a drop-in replacement for ARM in their other SoCs. Soon people will realize that ISA is often irrelevant, but the peripherals, libraries, and tools are.

That's not ST, it's by the Chinese company GigaDevice that makes (decent) clones of the STM32 series. Your point still stands though.

Re: ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V processor is pin-to-pin compatible with ESP8266

#49

Post by taf2 »

ducktective wrote: post #46
taf2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed having recently bought an esp32 s2 board it does not yet have platform io support so I put the board aside and figure I’ll come back to it in 6 months and see if that is updated.

To my understanding, PlatformIO is (merely) a set of scripts to handle multiple toolchains and HALs in a consistent way. In esp32-s2 case, it means integrating ESP-IDF only. What stops you from directly invoking cmake using the ESP-IDF?

Just time. I only just started learning how to use Arduino this past summer and discovered I could platformio with a Makefile this fall - it’s been pretty cool so far. I will probably spend sometime later learning Esp-idf next
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