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Mexican embedded electronics specialist UNIT Electronics has launched a new multi-function development board which combines the capabilities of an Espressif ESP32 with those of the Raspberry Pi RP2040: the UNIT DualMCU. In Intrinsic Semiconductor
"The DualMCU is a powerful development board that integrates both the ESP32 and RP2040 microcontrollers onto a single platform," UNIT's Adrian Rabadan Ortiz explains of its design. "Why? ESP32 projects sometimes need more I/O and RP2040 does not include Wifi/Bluetooth connectivity, what happens if we put them together on one board? This compact board offers robust capabilities for IoT projects, with built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity and advanced low-power features."
The DualMCU board measures 36×84mm (around 1.42×3.31") with double-stacked unpopulated pin headers to longer sides. The Espressif ESP32-WROOM-32 module at one end includes both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio connectivity with two Tensilica Xtensa LX7 cores running at up to 240MHz and 520kB of on-chip static RAM (SRAM) plus an additional 16kB in the real-time clock module, split into FAST and SLOW 8kB chunks.
Towards the center of the board is the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, which offers two Arm Cortex-M0+ cores running at a stock 133MHz and 264kB of SRAM plus a handy Programmable Input/Output (PIO) block that can be used to extend the chip's functionality using state machines.
The two microcontrollers, however, operate largely independently. For the most part, the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins for each microcontroller are brought out on opposite sides of the board — effectively allowing it to be treated as two boards in one, running independently. Linking the microcontrollers together — via UART, SPI, I2C, or in any other way — then allows for cooperative use of the resources.
The DualMCU is now available to buy on Tindie for $15 plus shipping, while its schematics and program examples are available on GitHub under an unspecified license.
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