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.
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
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.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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59 Dollar is really expensive for a 300 Mhz Process Board.
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.
What ? 64pin stm32 just for programming?? it must be a hell of a weed the designer was taking when he was designing ???
Freedom E310 lacks a USB-RS232 for programming, SiFive really need to integrate this into their next chip.
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 names, but because they come with interesting, competitive products, and do their homework on supporting them – Espressif for couple of years, ARM for couple of decades.
Overall, this “open source RISC-V CPU” stuff more and more looks like desire to fund a billion business using people from the street. Like, first buddies pay for those toy MCUs, then the company will sell to big corporations other MCUs, with non-removable spyware inside, as was announced here recently. Again, why do we need you for that? We already have ARM TrustZone to crack.