Espressif Releases ESP32-WROOM-DA with High Reliability Wireless Connectivity

Espressif Systems announced their new addition to the ESP32 module family; ESP32-WROOM-DA. The unique antenna design of the new module is extremely reliable, according to Espressif. It can switch the active antenna based on signal strength, even during transmission. That means, only one antenna will work at a time. The ESP32-WROOM-DA is pin compatible with existing ESP32-WROOM-32E and uses the dual core ESP32-D0WD-V3 chip.

A datasheet and technical specifications have yet to be known. Still, the switchable two-antenna design is expected to do better for applications that require Wi-Fi and Bluetooth coexistence. This will be possible if one of the two antennas can be assigned for either Wi-Fi or Bluetooh. The antennas being positioned in different directions will offer better range and reliable communication.

ESP32 is a feature packed, low-power wireless SoC from Shanghai based Espressif Systems. ESP32 was a successor to the legendary ESP8266. Relatively better pricing and availability of good English documentation has made both of these SoCs the favorites of engineers and hobbyists alike. The chip is designed with TSMC’s ultra-low-power 40 nm technology.

No pricing details or availability schedules of the module are known as of now.

ESP32 Specifications

1. Wi-Fi
   • 802.11 b/g/n
   • 802.11 n (2.4 GHz), up to 150 Mbps
   • WMM
   • TX/RX A-MPDU, RX A-MSDU
   • Immediate Block ACK Defragmentation
   • Automatic Beacon monitoring (hardware TSF)
   • 4 × virtual Wi-Fi interfaces
   • Simultaneous support for Infrastructure Station, SoftAP, and Promiscuous modes
   • Note that when ESP32 is in Station mode, performing a scan, the SoftAP channel will be changed.
   • Antenna diversity
2. Bluetooth
   • Compliant with Bluetooth v4.2 BR/EDR and BLE specifications
   • Class-1, class-2 and class-3 transmitter without external power amplifier
   • Enhanced Power Control
   • +12 dBm transmitting power
   • NZIF receiver with –94 dBm BLE sensitivity
   • Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH)
   • Standard HCI based on SDIO/SPI/UART
   • High-speed UART HCI, up to 4 Mbps
   • Bluetooth 4.2 BR/EDR BLE dual mode controller
   • Synchronous Connection-Oriented/Extended (SCO/eSCO)
   • CVSD and SBC for audio codec
   • Bluetooth Piconet and Scatternet
   • Multi-connections in Classic BT and BLE
   • Simultaneous advertising and scanning
3. CPU and Memory
   • Xtensa® single-/dual-core 32-bit LX6 microprocessor(s), up to 600 MIPS (200 MIPS for ESP32-S0WD/ESP32-U4WDH, 400 MIPS for ESP32-D2WD)
   • 448 KB ROM
   • 520 KB SRAM
   • 16 KB SRAM in RTC
   • QSPI supports multiple flash/SRAM chips
4. Clocks and Timers
   • Internal 8 MHz oscillator with calibration
   • Internal RC oscillator with calibration
   • External 2 MHz ~ 60 MHz crystal oscillator (40 MHz only for Wi-Fi/BT functionality)
   • External 32 kHz crystal oscillator for RTC with calibration
   • Two timer groups, including 2 × 64-bit timers and 1 × main watchdog in each group
   • One RTC timer
   • RTC watchdog
5. Advanced Peripheral Interfaces
   • 34 × programmable GPIOs
   • 12-bit SAR ADC up to 18 channels
   • 2 × 8-bit DAC
   • 10 × touch sensors
   • 4 × SPI
   • 2 × I²S
   • 2 × I²C
   • 3 × UART
   • 1 host (SD/eMMC/SDIO)
   • 1 peripheral (SDIO/SPI)
   • Ethernet MAC interface with dedicated DMA and IEEE 1588 support
   • Two-Wire Automotive Interface (TWAI®, compatible with ISO11898-1)
   • IR (TX/RX)
   • Motor PWM
   • LED PWM up to 16 channels
   • Hall sensor
6. Security
   • Secure boot
   • Flash encryption
   • 1024-bit OTP, up to 768-bit for customers
   • Cryptographic hardware acceleration:
     • AES
     • Hash (SHA-2)
     • RSA
     • ECC
     • Random Number Generator (RNG)

Links

1. Official Announcement