Arduino Cinque Combines SiFive RISC-V Freedom E310 MCU with ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC

SiFive introduced the first Arduino compatible board based on RISC-V processor late last year with HiFive1 development board powered by Freedom E310 MCU, but  the company has been working with Arduino directly on Arduino Cinque board equipped with SiFive Freedom E310 processor, ESP32 for WiFi and Bluetooth, and an STM32 ARM MCU to handle programming.

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Few other technical details have been provided for the new board, but since it looks so similar to HiFive1, I’ve come with up with preliminary/tentative Arduino Cinque specifications:

  • MCU – SiFive Freedom E310 (FE310) 32-bit RV32IMAC processor @ up to 320+ MHz (1.61 DMIPS/MHz)
  • WiSoC – Espressif ESP32 for WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE
  • Storage – 32-Mbit SPI flash
  • I/Os
    • 19x Digital I/O Pins
    • 19x external interrupt pins
    • 1x external wakeup pin
    • 9x PWM pins
    • 1/3 SPI Controllers/HW CS Pins
    • I/O Voltages –  3.3V or 5V supported
  • USB – 1x micro USB port for power, programming and debugging
  • Misc – 6-pin ICSP header, 2x buttons
  • Power Supply – 5 V via USB or 7 to 12V via DC Jack; Operating Voltage: 3.3 V and 1.8 V
  • Dimensions – 68 mm x 51 mm
Image Source: Olof Johansson

The board will obviously be programmable with the Arduino IDE, something that’s already possible on HiFive5 possibly with limitations since the platform is still new. Freedom E310 SoC RTL source code is also available via the Freedom SDK.

There’s no availability nor price information, but considering HiFive1 board is now sold for $59, and Arduino Cinque may cost about the same or a little more once it is launched since it comes with an extra ESP32 chip, but a smaller SPI flash. Hopefully, it will take less time than the one year gap experienced between the announcement and the release of Arduino Due.

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5 Comments
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Philipp Blum
Philipp Blum
7 years ago

59 Dollar is really expensive for a 300 Mhz Process Board.

willmore
willmore
7 years ago

Is that an STM32 just as the USB interface?

That board is crazy wasteful of resources. Any one of the chips on there would have been quite enough.

Abdulbasit
Abdulbasit
7 years ago

What ? 64pin stm32 just for programming?? it must be a hell of a weed the designer was taking when he was designing ???

rredline
rredline
7 years ago

Freedom E310 lacks a USB-RS232 for programming, SiFive really need to integrate this into their next chip.

anon
anon
7 years ago

Yeah, designs like this only do a disservice to SiFive offerings. Common crowd won’t buy because it’s too expensive, zealots won’t buy because for the asking price, you can easily throw in a couple more useful and powerful chips. Then why the heck SiFive is needed there at all? All could be different if they added 2, better 4 times RAM, so it could do something useful. But nope, they wanted to release a toy, useless MCU, but charge for it an arm and leg, pun intended. Sorry guys, but ARM and Espressif are there not because they have cute… Read more »

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