ESP32-C5 2.4 and 5 GHz Dual-band Wi-Fi 6 MCU

Espressif’s ESP32-C5 is the industry’s first RISC-V MCU that supports 2.4 and 5 GHz dual-band Wi-Fi 6, along with Bluetooth 5 (LE) and IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee 3.0, Thread 1.3) connectivity. It is designed for applications that require high-efficiency wireless transmission. ESP32-C5 has a 32-bit single-core processor which can clock up to 240 MHz in speed. It has a 384 KB on-chip SRAM along with external PSRAM support, 320 KB of ROM. It has up to 29 programmable GPioses, supporting all the commonly used peripherals and the best-in-class security features.

Features

2.4 and 5 GHz Dual-band Support

The 5 GHz band offers customers more reliable and low-latency wireless connectivity, ideal for scenarioses requiring minimal traffic and lower interference for critical applications. Dual band support enables users to assign different IoT devices to specific networks based on their importance. By incorporating dual-band connectivity into their devices, customers can achieve maximum flexibility and future-proof their solutions.

Wi-Fi 6

ESP32-C5 features a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) radio with 802.11a/b/g/n/ac backward compatibility. The 802.11ax standard in ESP32-C5 offers various benefits for IoT. Key features include Target Wake Time (TWT) for extended device sleep, MU-MIMO, and OFDMA for increased device capacity and lower latency. BSS coloring ensures stable connectivity even in congested areas with multiple SSIDs.

Outstanding RF Performance

The ESP32-C5 MCU supports Bluetooth 5 (LE), Zigbee 3.0, and Thread 1.3. It includes an IEEE Standard 802.15.4 subsystem that integrates PHY and MAC layers and supports various software stacks such as Thread, Zigbee, Matter, HomeKit, and MQTT. Additionally, ESP32-C5 continues to support Bluetooth LE SIG Mesh and ESP-Mesh-Lite, with Bluetooth 5 (LE) enabling long-range operation through advertising extensions and coded PHY. It also supports 2 Mbps of high throughput PHY to help build devices with great coverage and improved usability.

Security

Aligning with Espressif’s philosophy, the ESP32-C5 prioritizes affordable security, featuring secure boot, flash and PSRAM encryption, and cryptographic accelerators. It includes a hardware-based Digital Signature Peripheral and a dedicated Key Manager for secures key storage and deployment. The Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), with an Access Permission Management (APM) hardware block and Physical Memory Protection (PMP), enhances application security management flexibility.

Software Availability

ESP32-C5 is supported on Espressif’s open-source ESP-IDF, which already powers millions of devices in the field. This support ensures the availability of a robust SDK and tools, as well as an easy application migration path for developers. The added support for PSRAM enables developers to focus on application development without worrying about memory optimization. The larger memory availability also provides better futureproofing for upgrades. For customers who would like to use ESP32-C5 as a communication co-processor with an external host, ESP-AT and ESP-Hosted are also available.