What would you like to see in The Next Chip?

[Ing-Dom]

I'm currently desiging a device with Ethernet and therefor using the old ESP32 in the QFN package, ESP32-PICO-V3-02.

The most anoying stuff it the missing native USB (Uart + BL) and the very limitied GPIOs..

[eriksl]

IIRC the original ESP32 doesn't have an ethernet MAC nor PHY, correct? So you're talking about an SPI connected MAC+PHY?

Would the ESP32-S2 (no Bluetooth) or ESP32-S3 be a starting point and then added internal ethernet PHY and or MAC?

How is the external ethernet PHY+MAC? I have been using one from Microchip on an ATmega several years ago, the main problem was it was 10 Mbps HD only and that it had a few sillicon bugs, but besides that, it worked fine.

What does "BL" mean?

[martins]

@eriksl original ESP32 does in fact have ethernet MAC with which you can achieve speeds up to around 75 Mbps. That is slight drawback of all newer chips that has to use SPI ethernet with max speeds barely over 10 Mbps. In some use cases the ethernet over USB might be interesting alternative tho.

[eriksl]

Thank you for your clarification!

I am interested though in typical applications for microcontrollers that need such a high throughput. I think 10 Mbps isn't that bad? Bits I assume, so ~ 1 Mbyte/s?

[expresspotato]

The ESP32 Pico V3 - 02 has been perfect for us... For the iteration we would love to see the same, but with a spec bump across the board. The ESP32-V3 is already a fantastic chip, and esp-idf is top notch.

- Dual Core, 320 + Mhz
- At least 768K total SRAM
- Hard FPU
- WiFi 6/7 on 2.4/5/6 Ghz
- Dual Antenna
- BLE / LE Audio or Classic brought back. We need A2D / HFP, they're a hard stop.
- ULP needs to stay
- Still integrated flash

This would solve a lot of our problems for the future and keep us with Espressif. We've looked at other MCU's and really what we need is a spec bump.

[expresspotato]

A true successor to the ESP32, in my humble 2.5 cents (inflation!), from the perspective of an audio system, after having gone through a couple of prototypes with ESP32 and/or ESP32-S3:

• Keep the APLL, it gives a cleaner MCLK than ESP32-S3 does. This helps with signal-to-noise ratio on DACs that don't have their own PLL.
• Keep Bluetooth classic. It's still the vast majority of Bluetooth audio applications until LE Audio goes mainstream, and how long will that take? (It just made it into Android 13, will existing phones get that update and can their chips even support it?)
• More bits in the I2S registers to support higher BCLK/WS divisor; S3 was limited to TDM4 at 32-bit and this required a dual-wielding I2S to achieve 8 channels
  P4 has me drooling over the number of pins and peripherals, but lacking WiFi and BT means it needs a separate chip for the radios (so just stick another ESP32 on the board?). I have tried that kind of thing before, an esp32 and an esp32-s3 on the same board to get Bluetooth classic & APLL from ESP32, and USB & TDM from the S3, but this then complicates the system quite a bit

Looks like you and I are in the same boat. We also do audio... I did look at the P4 but yep, as you said, no connectivity at all. We can't do dual chip because of power consumption.

Really what I really want is a better ESP32.

Not these weird variants.

[eriksl]

The ESP32 Pico V3 - 02 has been perfect for us... For the iteration we would love to see the same, but with a spec bump across the board. The ESP32-V3 is already a fantastic chip, and esp-idf is top notch.

- Dual Core, 320 + Mhz
- At least 768K total SRAM
- Hard FPU
- WiFi 6/7 on 2.4/5/6 Ghz
- Dual Antenna
- BLE / LE Audio or Classic brought back. We need A2D / HFP, they're a hard stop.
- ULP needs to stay
- Still integrated flash

This would solve a lot of our problems for the future and keep us with Espressif. We've looked at other MCU's and really what we need is a spec bump.

This is not a "chip" but a breakout board?

[expresspotato]

The ESP32 Pico V3 - 02 has been perfect for us... For the iteration we would love to see the same, but with a spec bump across the board. The ESP32-V3 is already a fantastic chip, and esp-idf is top notch.

- Dual Core, 320 + Mhz
- At least 768K total SRAM
- Hard FPU
- WiFi 6/7 on 2.4/5/6 Ghz
- Dual Antenna
- BLE / LE Audio or Classic brought back. We need A2D / HFP, they're a hard stop.
- ULP needs to stay
- Still integrated flash

This would solve a lot of our problems for the future and keep us with Espressif. We've looked at other MCU's and really what we need is a spec bump.

This is not a "chip" but a breakout board?

No, it's a single chip. The pico-v3-02.

"Across the board" is an expression in English, in this case, meaning "over a wide range of attributes".

Hence, I would like to see more of the same from the team at Espressif, but with spec bumps over a wide range of attributes & features. The P4 lacks connectivity, the other's gain WiFi 6, but lack dual core. Other's lack A2D and HFP.

We really have no upgrade path with Espressif today...

[mikemoy]

We really have no upgrade path with Espressif today...

I hate to admit it, but I agree. They upgrade one thing and remove another. It's slowly been turning into a Hodgepodge of micros.
The P4 had the best shot at having everything until they removed the WiFi.


I say just throw it all in one chip and stop with all these other iterations. It has to be a nightmare for the hardware, software, and documentation guys at espressif to keep up with all these changes.

[eriksl]

This is not a "chip" but a breakout board?

No, it's a single chip. The pico-v3-02.

Well, yes and no. It's a SiP (system-in-a-package). So I was wrong, it's not a breakout board. But it's not a real, unique "ESP32" chip either. This particular SIP is "just" a plain ESP32-vanilla-no-thrills and has flash and spi-ram added.

If you're interested in SiPs may I suggest to have a look at the various incarnations of the ESP32-S3 in SiPs and breakout boards? The S3 is in all but one areas superior to the original ESP32 (LED PWM). Some of them have huge amounts of flash and/or spi-ram, if you like, and they're not even expensive.

Hence, I would like to see more of the same from the team at Espressif, but with spec bumps over a wide range of attributes & features. The P4 lacks connectivity, the other's gain WiFi 6, but lack dual core. Other's lack A2D and HFP.

Espressif keep saying there's a market for all these models and I believe them. Don't forget all the low-spec basic devices that really don't need a double core processor or large amounts of RAM. For example "smart" grid plugs. In large quantities, every penny counts.

They're also saying the upper end of the market will be served too, in time.

In my opinion the ESP32-S3, especially in a suitable SiP or breakout board is actually top of the line at the moment. The only thing is that it isn't very future-proof, as it still has the Xtensa cores (which at least until now, have proven to be still superior to the RISC-V offered in the "C" variants).

So, for the moment, my wish list is just:
- add a RISC-V implementation of the ESP-S3 and fix a few issues the ESP-S3 currently has
- add 5 GHz support, no real need for Wifi 6 etc.
- less, in my opinion, artificial limits on the hardware module's features. For example the size of the timer used for PWM (any variant), which can easily be up to 32 bits, but is limited to arbitrary values like 14 or 16 bits.