Olimex ESP32-P4-DevKit offers Ethernet, USB JTAG, MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces

Olimex ESP32-P4-DevKit is a compact development board powered by a 400 MHz ESP32-P4 general-purpose dual-core RISC-V microcontroller with a 10/100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 connector, a USB-C Serial/JTAG connector, MIPI DSI/CSI connectors for a display and a camera, GPIO headers and UEXT connector, Boot and Reset buttons, and a few LEDs.

In some ways, it offers similar to the Waveshare ESP32-P4-NANO board we covered last month, but in a different form factor, and it lacks WiFi 6 connectivity and a USB Type-A connector. It’s also much more compact and cheaper than the official ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board launched this summer, but again, with fewer features.

Olimex ESP32-P4-Devkit:

Microcontroller – ESP32-P4
- MCU
  - Dual-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 400 MHz with AI instructions extension and single-precision FPU
  - Single-RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core @ up to 40 MHz
- GPU – 2D Pixel Processing Accelerator (PPA)
- VPU – H.264 and JPEG codecs support
- Memory – 768 KB HP L2MEM, 32 KB LP SRAM, 8 KB TCM, 32MB PSRAM
- Storage – 128 KB HP ROM, 16 KB LP ROM
Storage
- 16MB SPI NOR flash
- MicroSD card slot
Display interface – 2-lane MIPI DSI connector
Camera interface – 2-lane MIPI CSI connector
Networking – 10/100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 port with optional PoE support
Expansion
- 2x 20-pin GPIO headers
- pUEXT connector for expansion module
Debugging – USB-C Serial/JTAG for programming and debugging
Misc
- Power LED, user LED, Ethernet LEDs (on-board)
- BOOT and RESET buttons
Power Supply
- 5V via USB-C port
- Optional PoE module
Dimensions – 72 x 30 mm; 4x mounting holes with 3.3mm diameter

Olimex already tested the ESP32-P4-DevKit board with the ESP-IDF 5.4 (beta2) release using Blink, iperf, MIPI CSI, and SDmmc demos. Arduino and MicroPython ports will likely come later. As usual, the board is open-source hardware, and you’ll find the KiCad hardware design files and PDF schematics on GitHub.

Olimex is taking orders for the ESP32-P4-DevKit for just 16 Euros, but since ESP32-P4 microcontrollers are still available in limited quantities, they only allow one board per order. The company did not mention compatible display and camera modules but I’d assume the 7-inch capacitive touch screen (1024 x 600) and 2MP camera module used in the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board development board should work.

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.