wch

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on LoLRa project – Transmitting LoRa packets without radio using CH32V003, ESP8266, or ESP32-S2 MCU

LoLRa project – Transmitting LoRa packets without radio using CH32V003, ESP8266, or ESP32-S2 MCU

LolRa

The LoLRa project is a firmware-only LoRa transmission open-source project that works without a Semtech radio and instead relies on an I2S or SPI interface (so not exactly bit-banging) to transmit data with microcontrollers such as WCH CH32V003, or Espressif Systems ESP8266 and ESP32-S2 microcontrollers. LoRa is a proprietary protocol by Semtech, but people have been trying to reverse-engineer the LoRa PHY for years, and this culminated with a LoRa GNU Radio SDR implementation last year. But CNLohr found out you don’t even need a radio to send LoRa packets and you can instead use SPI or I2S interfaces from general-purpose microcontrollers to send packets that can be decoded by commercial off-the-shelf LoRa gateways and other chips. The current implementation is designed for the  ITU Region 2 (aka The Americas) targeting the 902-928MHz frequency band, but the code could be changed for Region 1 (EU, Russia, Africa) to target 863-870MHz […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on WCH RISC-V microcontrollers can now be programmed with the Arduino IDE

WCH RISC-V microcontrollers can now be programmed with the Arduino IDE

WCH RISC-V Arduino

WCH has launched some interesting RISC-V microcontrollers in the last year or so, including the “10 cents” CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller with 2KB SRAM and 16KB flash or the CH32V307with more resources (up to 64KB SRAM and 256KB flash) and additional peripherals. So far they were programmable in C language using MounRiver IDE or an open-source toolchain, but WCH has now announced Arduino support for many of those RISC-V microcontrollers which should enable more people to get involved. The core library for CH32duino works with OpenOCD through WCH-LINKE hardware to download the firmware and debug WCH chips and a riscv-none-embed-gcc toolchain that supports custom RISC-V instructions (half-word and byte compression instruction extensions and hardware stack push/pop functions) found in WCH RISC-V microcontroller. The following evaluation kits are currently supported with ADC, DAC, USART, GPIO, EXTI, SysTick, I2C, and SPI peripherals: CH32V003F4P EVT board CH32V203G8U EVT board CH32X035G8U EVT board CH32V103R8T6_BLACK EVT […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on Giveaway Week 2023 winners announced!

Giveaway Week 2023 winners announced!

CNX Software Giveaway Week 2023 Prizes

CNX Software’s Giveaway Week 2023 is now over and we’re ready to announce the winners. We offered some of the review samples we tested (or not) in the last year, and like the last two years, we were also joined by RAKwireless who offered two IoT development kits. All items given away are shown in the photo below, minus some accessories, and if you count more than seven you’d be right, as some are kits with multiple items like the GL.iNet GL-S200 Thread Border router which comes with three development boards, and more importantly, we also organized Giveaway Week on CNX Software Thailand for the second year running. We had seven winners on CNX Software: VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit – Kraingsak, Thailand TBS7901 mini PCIe DVB-S2X/S2 module  – Frank, Singapore RAKWireless WisBlock IoT Starter Kit – Andy, Russia GL.iNet GL-S200 Thread Border router kit – Augustin, Argentina WCH CH583M-R0-1v1 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Polos CH32Vxx 32-bit RISC-V MCU boards starts at $1.99

Polos CH32Vxx 32-bit RISC-V MCU boards starts at $1.99

Polos RISC-V development boards

XPU Labs, a subsidiary of AnalogLamb, has designed three inexpensive “Polos” development boards based on WCH CH32VXX RISC-V microcontrollers with pricing starting at just $1.99. The three development/breakout boards have the same form factor and only differ in the specific RISC-V MCU used with three parts selected: the 48 MHz CH32V003F4U6 microcontroller, the 144 MHz CH32V203F8P6 MCU, and the CH32V305FBP6 that’s similar to the former but add more memory (32KB) and flash (128KB). You can see also three boards side-by-side in the photo below along with the Amnos LinkE CH32Vxx debugger & programmer board. Polos CH32V003 Breakout Alef specifications: MCU – WCH CH32V003F4U6 QingKe 32-bit RISC-V2A microcontroller up to 48MHz with 2KB SRAM, 16KB Flash (QFN20 Package) USB – 1x Micro USB port I/Os – 2x 12-pin headers with Up to 18 GPIOs with external interrupt support 1x USART, 1x I2C, 1x SPI 10-bit ADC Debugging – 1-wire serial debug […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments on CH32V003 RISC-V MCU gets $1.5 development board, open source GCC toolchain and flasher utility

CH32V003 RISC-V MCU gets $1.5 development board, open source GCC toolchain and flasher utility

Cheap CH32V003 RISC-V development board

When we first wrote about the 10-cent CH32V003 RISC-V MCU it was offered in a $7 development board and the closed-source MounRiver Studio IDE had to be used for programming. But things have improved since October 2022, and now, you can buy a CH32V003 board for as little as $1.5 plus shipping, and an open-source GCC toolchain and flasher/downloader are now available. Let’s have a look at the hardware first with the low-cost nanoCH32V003 development board featuring a 48 MHz CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller with 2KB SRAM and 16KB flash, a USB Type-C port for power, a reset button, and two rows of headers for the GPIOs. MuseLab nanoCH32V003 specifications: MCU – WCH CH32V003F4U6 32-bit RISC-V2A microcontroller up to 48 MHz with 2KB SRAM, 16KB flash (QFN20 package) Expansion – 2x 11-pin headers with up to 18x GPIOs,  1x USART, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 8-channel 10-bit ADC, 5V, 3.3V, GND Debugging […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments on 10 cents CH32V003 RISC-V MCU offers 2KB SRAM, 16KB flash in SOP8 to QFN20 packages

10 cents CH32V003 RISC-V MCU offers 2KB SRAM, 16KB flash in SOP8 to QFN20 packages

CH32V003 development board

WCH CH32V003 is a new ultra-cheap RISC-V microcontroller (MCU) clocked at 48 MHz with 2KB SRAM, 16KB flash, and a bunch of interfaces that sells for under 10 cents in quantities. The MCU offers up to eighteen GPIOs, UART, SPI, I2C, an 8-channel 10-bit ADC, and several timers in TSSOP20, QFN20, SOP16, or SOP8 packages, and a small development board is also available. WCH CH32V003 specifications: CPU – 32-bit “RISC-V2A” core up to 48 MHz Memory – 2KB SRAM Storage – 16KB flash Peripherals Up to 18x GPIO with interrupt support 1x USART interface 1x I2C 1x SPI 10-bit ADC up to 8 channels 1-Wire debug interface General purpose DMA controller Timers 16-bit advanced timer 16-bit general-purpose timer 2x watchdog timers 32-bit system timer Misc – 64-bit chip unique ID Supply voltage – 3.3/5V Low power modes – Sleep, standby Power on Reset (POR), programmable voltage detector Packages – TSSOP20, […]