Ai Thinker Ai-M62-12F-Kit is a development board based on Bouffalo Lab BL616 RISC-V microcontroller with 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 LE, and an 802.15.4 radio (Zigbee/Thread), plus thirty I/O pin for expansion.
We had already covered the tiny Sipeed M0S module based on BL616 MCU earlier this year along with its M0S dock board that exposed eight GPIO pins via a 12-pin header, and the “NodeMCU” Ai-M62-12F basically offers the same features but with many more I/Os thanks to two 15-pin headers, as well as an RGB LED and two user-programmable LEDs.
Ai-M62-12F-Kit 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 – PCB antenna
- USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming
- I/Os – 2x 15-pin headers with
- Storage – SD/MMC(SDH)
- Audio – I2S
- USB – USB 2.0 OTG up to 480 Mbps
- I2C, UART, SPI, PWM
- Analog – GPDAC, GPADC, ACOM
- Up to 16x GPIOs
- 5V, 3.3V, and GND
- Security – WPS, WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA3
- Misc – Reset (EN) and BURN buttons, RGB LED, 2x user LEDs
- Supply Voltage
- 5V via USB-C port (recommended) or 5V pin header
- 3.3V via 3.3V pin header
- Current >= 500 mA
- Dimensions – 49.66 x 25.40 mm
- Temperature Range
- Operating: -40 to +85°C
- Storage: -40 to +125°C, < 90% RH
Ai Thinker offers some documentation for the NodeMCU Ai-M62-12F-Kit board and corresponding Ai-M62-12F module, as well as other BL616 modules and devkit with different form factors including Ai–M62-13-Kit, Ai–M62-32S-Kit, and the Ai–M62-M2-I-Kit, while linking to the “aithinker_Ai-M6X_SDK” Bouffalo SDK on GitHub for software support and code samples.
If the information on GitHub is up-to-date, the SDK currently only supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth Low Energy for the BL616 microcontroller, but not Bluetooth Classic and Zigbee just yet. All peripherals appear to be supported.
Note that the Bouffalo BL616 competes directly against the ESP32-C6 WiFi 6, BLE, and Zigbee microcontroller with Espressif launching modules and devkits officially at the beginning of the year, and some third-party ESP32-C6 board showing up in April.
Bouffalo Lab and Ai Thinker have been quite aggressive on pricing as the Ai-M62-12F-Kit development board currently sells for $4.94 plus shipping ($6.81 in total to Thailand), and equivalent ESP32-C6 boards go for $7.74 plus shipping ($11.84 in total here)
Thanks to Chris for the tip.
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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