Recently, there was a lot of buzz as the 32bit general purpose GigaDevice GD32V which is based on RISC-V open architecture as well as the Longan Nano development board with LCD display were launched into the board market. Compared to the formerly released GD32 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller, the GD32V RISC-V MCU is expected to deliver 15% performance improvement in Coremark and 25 – 50% lower power consumption. However, since many applications require network connectivity, there is still a strong need for wireless SoCs for RISC-V MCUs and while the founding members of the RISC-V foundation are seemingly not doing anything about it, Seeed Studio is taking a bold step and has launched the new Wio Lite RISC – V board with the ESP8266 WiFi module to bring Wi-Fi connectivity to GD32V MCU.
The Wio Lite has a feather form factor that allows for feathering add-on board compatibility. It also has a similar development environment as the Longan Nano board and a support for LieOS and RT-Thread operating systems, as well as tools like the Arduino IDE, OpenOCD, PlatformIO IDE and GCC. Some of Wio Lite specifications include:
- Wireless Module – ESP8266 Wi-Fi Wio Core with 802.116 / g / n / WiFi 4 connectivity
- Microcontrolling Unit – Gigadevice GD32VF103CBT6 RISC-V at 108MHz with 32KB SRAM and 128KB Flash .
- USB – One USB Type-C port for power and programming
- MISC – Charging and power LEDS, boot switch and reset button
- Storage – Micro SD card slot for storage
- Debugging – Unpopulated 6-pin JTAG header
- Power Supply – 5V via USB Type-C port and JST2.0 Lipo battery header .
- Power Consumption – RISC-V core power consumption.
- I / O header for Wio Core ESP8266 module and I / O headers for GD32 MCU
The board works with the Grove Shield for Wio Lite, so any Grove sensor or module can be used with it, just like in the Arm-based Wio Lite W600 which sells for $9.95. It is particularly ideal for battery operated devices and interesting to those that would want to work around with the RISC-V.
Read more: NEW WIO LITE RISC – V WIFI BOARD WITH ESP8266 MODULE FOR WIFI CONNECTIVITY LAUNCHES FOR $6.9
