Espressif Reveals ESP32-P4, So close to perfection

[mikemoy]

In reading about the new ESP32-P4 I was very excited to see a faster dual core, more I/O, and they put back in the ethernet, that they took out of the ESP32-S3.
What blew my mind and made me say what were they thinking, was they removed Wi-Fi & BT.
Seriously Espressif? Who makes these crazy decisions there?
You were so close this time to having the prefect micro out there!

[ESP_Sprite]

No fear, we'll make more microcontrollers, including ones that are large and have RF. And we started out with the knowledge that people may want to have WiFi as well, so we're going to make sure it's very easy to simply plunk an ESP32-C2 or C6 or whatever next to it and have RF connectivity that way. The thing is that not having a radio on this one allowed us to put more stuff into the chip easier: it's a lot easier to have high-frequency things like MIPI and USB2, not to speak of lots of GPIO, in a chip if you don't need to worry about the impact on the RF bits of the silicon.

[locustcox]

Not every microcontroller needs WiFi and/or ble. This looks like an excellent competitor to STM’s f7 series micros. Can’t wait to start using the P4 in my designs! I’m glad you all finally have another micro with an embedded Ethernet MAC.

Any idea on approximate-ish, sorta release date?

[NZ Gangsta]

Any updates on the P4? I'm thinking of making a new project and the chip looks suitable if I can get my hands on it.

[JohnnyZ]

According to Reddit Q3 2024.

[pctj101]

A nice thing about ESP32 is with Ethernet and Wifi, one chip and one program could do everything.

Adding C2 or C6 for Wifi is okay but the extra programming and juggling the programming header is a challenge, especially if each person needs to create their own protocol to go between P4 and C2 chips. It also makes P4 OTA tricky if there is no standard way to use the wifi.

If there is a "wifi driver program" for the C2 to act like a P4 Wifi-card, and the only worry is programming the P4, it takes many worries away.

[ESP_Sprite]

If there is a "wifi driver program" for the C2 to act like a P4 Wifi-card, and the only worry is programming the P4, it takes many worries away.

The plan is to have esp-hosted to make the C2/C3/C6 act as a 'standard WiFi chip'. We should also be able to program that chip via the P4; the C-series chips have support to upload flash via the same SDIO/SPI line as the WiFi packets go over.