CH583 RISC-V microcontroller supports Bluetooth 5.3 LE

Following up on the CH572 RISC-V BLE microcontroller with 10KB SRAM, WCH has now introduced the CH583 RISC-V microcontroller with 32KB SRAM, 1 MB flash, and support for the latest Bluetooth 5.3 LE standard.

The new microcontroller also offers a wide range of peripherals with two USB host/device interfaces, up to 40 GPIOs, four UART, two SPI, one I2C, up to 14 ADC interfaces, and more. WCH also offers CH581 and CH582 microcontrollers with a different minimum input voltage, less storage (256KB for CH581) and/or peripherals.

CH581, CH582, CH583 specifications:

• MCU core – 32-bit RISC processor WCH RISC-V4A with RV32IMAC instruction set
• Memory – 32 KB SRAM
• Storage – 512KB non-volatile storage FlashROM:
  • 448KB user application program memory area CodeFlash
  • 32KB user non-volatile data memory area DataFlash
  • 24KB system boot program memory area BootLoader
  • 8KB system non-volatile configuration information memory area InfoFlash
• BLE Connectivity
  • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) v5.3
  • Integrated with 2.4GHz RF transceiver and baseband and link control
    Receiving sensitivity -98dBm, programmable +7dBm transmission power
  • Support 2Mbps, 1Mbps, 500Kbps and 125Kbps
  • Range
    • About 500 meters at the transmission power of 7dBm
    • About 1000 meters at the transmission power of 7dBm and 125Kbps
• USB – 2x USB 2.0 host/client interfaces
• Peripherals
  • 14x 12-bit ADC, 14-channel TouchKey detection module
  • 4x 26-bit timers
  • 4-channel 26-bit PWM output, 8-channel 8-bit PWM output
  • 4x UARTs, compatible with 16C550, built-in 8-level FIFO
  • 2x SPI, 1x master/slave I2C
  • 40x GPIOs, 4x supporting 5V input, 32x GPIOs with interrupt support
• Security – AES-128 encryption and decryption, unique chip ID
• Misc – RTC, Temperature Sensor (TS),  Built-in PLL, built-in 32KHz clock
• Power Management
  • 3.3V and 2.5V power, CH583M supports 1.8V as well
  • Built-in DC-DC conversion to reduce power consumption
  • Power Consumption
    • Idle mode: 1.6mA
    • Halt mode: 320uA
    • Sleep mode: Multiple gears from 0.7uA to 2.8uA
    • Shutdown mode: Multiple gears from 0.2uA to 2.3uA
• Package – QFN48_5X5, QFN28_4X4

It used to be hard to get information about WCH microcontroller, but it appears the company has decided to release development resources directly on Github, at least for RISC-V microcontrollers. That means we’ve got the CH583 datasheet in English, information about the CH853M-R0-1v1 development board (only in Chinese ) with USB Type-A and USB Type-C ports, as well as access to all peripherals via headers, and an SDK with code samples and Android app for OTA, and further documentation. That’s a good development albeit the SDK is distributed as a ZIP file and most documentation is in Chinese.

Sadly, the chips and board are not available for purchase online at this time, but Patrick Yan, technical director at WCH and president at the RISC-V MCU Research Institute, says people wanting to purchase in bulk, you can contact him via Twitter.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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