Shanghai-based ESPRESSIF announces the newest addition to Espressif’s series of MCUs, ESP32-S3, which has been specially designed to address the needs of the AIoT market.
Comparing with its previous version of ESP 32, it supports larger, high-speed octal SPI flash, and PSRAM with configurable data and instruction cache.
What is AIoT?
AIoT:= (AI + IoT Artificial Intelligence of Things) AioT is driven by 3 Key Technologies they’re Artificial Intelligence AI, 5G Networks, and Big Data.
ESP32-S3 key features and specifications:
- CPU –
- Dual-core Tensilica LX7 up to 240 MHz same as ESP32-S2 with additional vector instructions for AI acceleration
- ULP core to handle low power modes
- Memory – 512 KB of internal SRAM
- Storage – Octal SPI flash and PSRAM support (supports larger, high-speed devices compared to ESP32)
- Connectivity
- 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 4 with 40 MHz bandwidth support
- Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0 connectivity with long-range support, up to 2Mbps data rate. Wi-Fi and BLE have superior RF performance maintained even at high temperatures.
- Peripherals
- 44x programmable GPIOs (10 more than ESP32)
- SD/MMC host
- SPI, I2C, PWM, UART, RMT (Remote Control), TWAITM (Two-Wire Automotive Interface)
- ADC, DAC
- I2S
- USB OTG
- Capacitive touch input
- ULP (Ultra-Low-Power) core that supports multiple low-power modes in a variety of such use-cases.
- Security
- AES-XTS-based flash encryption
- RSA-based secure boot.
- Digital signature peripheral and an HMAC module (similar to a secure element)
- “World Controller” peripheral that provides two fully-isolated execution environments and enables a trusted-execution environment or a privilege-separation scheme.
Firstly, the ESP32-S3 is coming with its AI Acceleration Support through which Artificial Intelligence applications can take advantage of the ESP32-S3’s vector instructions in the MCU. These provide acceleration for neural networks and signal processing loads. Also, The software libraries for the above-mentioned optimized functions will become available very soon, in the form of updates to ESP-WHO and ESP-Skainet Github Repositories.
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Also, the ESP-IDF platform supports the ESP 32-S3 which has an unparalleled support policy powering millions of devices in the market. With ESP-IDF’s mature software architecture, developers can easily build applications, migrate their own applications to the ESP32-S3 platform, and continue working with the trusted ESP-IDF tools and APIs.
Moreover, “ESP32-S3 is an overall optimization in terms of connectivity, AI computing power, security, IO availability, and peripheral interfaces.” ESP32-S3 aims to provide cost-effective and easy-to-develop AIoT solutions.
