$4 Sipeed M0S Dock IoT development board features BL616 WiFi 6, BLE 5.2, and Zigbee RISC-V microcontroller

As expected, Sipeed has now launched the Sipeed M0S IoT module based on Bouffalo Lab BL616 RISC-V microcontroller with 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, BLE 5.2, and Zigbee connectivity along with the “Sipeed M0S Dock” development board.

The M0S is a tiny module (11×10 mm) with a 320 MHz wireless MCU, a ceramic antenna, and castellated holes for I/Os, and the Sipeed M0S Dock places the module on an easy-to-use board with a USB Type-C port, a BOOT button, and a 12-pin 2.54mm pitch header.

Sipeed M0S module specifications:

• MCU – Bouffalo Lab BL616 32-bit RISC-V (RV32IMAFCP) microcontroller @ up to 320 MHz (384 MHz overclocked) with 480KB SRAM, 4MB flash, 2.4 GHz  WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 dual mode, and 802.15.4 radio (Zigbee)
• Antenna – Ceramic antenna (red component on module)
• I/Os – 25 castellated holes with
  • RGB LCD
  • DVP camera
  • USB 2.0 OTG up to 480 Mbps
  • I2C, UART, SPI
  • Up to 19x GPIO
• Supply Voltage – 3.3V
• Dimensions – 11 x 10 mm

BL616 datasheet and technical reference manual can be found on the Sipeed website. There’s also a Wiki, but it shows BL702 MCU found in M0Sense instead of BL616, so the information there has yet to be fully updated. Sipeed says the board works with Bouffalo Lab bl_mcu_sdk and also provides a repository that’s supposed to come with code samples for the BL616 module and board, but is empty at the time of writing.

So documentation still needs to be worked on. The company also compared the Sipeed M0S module to the ESP32-S3 N4 module probably because both the BL616 and ESP32-S3 come with AI vector instructions to accelerate machine learning workloads.

It should be noted Espressif Systems has also just launched its own ESP32-C6 module with support for 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and  Zigbee support. The main advantage may be support for the high-speed USB port, and BL616 also combines AI instructions and WiFi 6 on the same chip, something none of the ESP32 chips provide so far. Having said that Espressif chips still win hands down when it comes to firmware support. As a side note, 2.4 GHz WiFi 6 can be useful for IoT with its low-power feature called Target Wake Time (TWT).

Sipeed is selling the M0S module for $3.19 and the M0S dock for $4.39 plus shipping, but stocks are limited, so you may have to try again later if the item you want is out of stock.

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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