Adafruit QT Py ESP32-C3, the world's first RISC-V dev board

The Adafruit QT Py ESP32-C3, the world's first RISC-V dev board, has started rolling off the assembly line.

The Adafruit shop will soon include a tiny board featuring a 160MHz RISC-V CPU, 400kB of SRAM, 4MB flash, Wi-Fi, and BLE 5.0.

Adafruit has verified that the QT Py ESP32-C3, the company's first development board based on the open source RISC-V instruction set architecture, will be available shortly — and for less than $10.

""This is our first RISC-V-based dev board," Adafruit's Phillip Torrone said of the latest addition to the QT Py family of boards, "and isn't that something to celebrate?" It's a QT Py based on the ESP32-C3, a Wi-Fi + BLE chipset that uses RISC-V rather than the Tensilica core."

• Seeed Xiao's dimensions, form factor, and pin-out are same.
• This USB Type C connection can come in useful if you only have Micro B cords.
• ESP32-C3 is a single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor with 4MB of Flash memory and 400 KB of SRAM.
• The chip has a USB-to-Serial converter that may also be used for JTAG programming. This peripheral isn't native serial, therefore it won't work with USB HID, MIDI, or MSC; nonetheless, it saves money by eliminating the need for a separate converter.
• It's compatible with both the Arduino IDE and MicroPython.
• Built-in RGB lighting We were unable to add a NeoPixel power pin owing to the limited quantity of GPIO.
• For external battery packs up to 6V input, there are battery input pads on the underside with diode protection.
• GPIO pins: 13
• Reset switch for starting your project code over, boot 9 button for entering bootloader mode

At the end of 2020, Espressif unveiled the ESP32-C3 as a pin-compatible alternative for the popular ESP8266 microprocessor. A 32-bit single-core microcontroller based on the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, with 400kB of static RAM (SRAM) and radios for 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0, lies at its heart.

""This chip is a bit new," Torrone says, "but it appears to have quite decent Arduino compatibility, we're able to run Wi-Fi testing, and happily someone provided us a patch for NeoPixels, so that's also shining." This chip has a USB-to-Serial converter (not native USB!) and a ROM bootloader, which is ideal for beginners because it is not brickable."

Those interested in picking up the board should be aware of the following limitations: The new QT Py can't be used as a keyboard or disc drive since it lacks native USB; it also lacks a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and native capacitive touch sensing capability.

The first QT Py ESP32-C3 boards, which have 4MB of flash storage, have begun to roll off Adafruit's manufacturing line; interested parties may sign up to be alerted when the boards become available for purchase on the Adafruit shop, where they will be priced at $9.95 in the near future.