Espressif announces ESP32-S2 chip

Espressif has announced the ESP32-S2 Secure Wi-Fi MCU. It is a variant of the popular ESP32 microcontroller with built-in Wi-Fi. Among other things, the microcontroller has support for USB OTG. There is no Bluetooth support.

Espressif has built the ESP32-S2 around the Xtensa LX7, a 32-bit single-core that does its job at 240MHz. It offers computing power of 2 to 64flops per cycle, depending on the implementation. The regular ESP32 is based on the slower LX6 but did have two cores.

However, the most important addition over the ESP32 is that the S2 has direct support for USB OTG. Furthermore, the chip has 320kB sram, 128kB rom and 16kB rtc memory. Of course there is support for wifi-n, but there is no bluetooth support. In terms of I/O, there are 42 gpios, among others. The chip is contained in a qfn package of 7x7mm, which means that it can be integrated in wearables, among other things.

The ESP32 is a popular chip for hobby electronics projects thanks to its combination of economy, limited size, low price of a few euros and support for Wi-Fi.