Field Guide · organization

Also known as: Espressif

Espressif Systems is a Chinese semiconductor company, founded in 2008, best known for its low-cost ESP32 family of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth microcontrollers.1

MCU core Wi-Fi / BT radio memory one low-cost package 2014 ESP8266 Wi-Fi 2016 ESP32 + Bluetooth, more power later variants incl. RISC-V cores
Espressif's trick is integration: the ESP series packs a microcontroller, a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth radio, and memory into one cheap chip, evolving from the Wi-Fi-only ESP8266 to the Bluetooth-capable ESP32 and its later RISC-V variants.

Overview

Espressif first drew wide attention with the ESP8266, a cheap chip that put Wi-Fi within reach of hobbyist projects. Its successor, the ESP32, added Bluetooth, more processing power, and a richer set of peripherals while staying inexpensive.2

The chips integrate a microcontroller, radio, and memory in one package, and Espressif backs them with open development frameworks and broad community support. That combination made the ESP series a default choice for connected sensors and devices across the Internet of Things.

The ESP family

A few generations trace Espressif’s climb from a Wi-Fi add-on to a full IoT platform:

Chip Year Adds
ESP8266 2014 Low-cost Wi-Fi
ESP32 2016 Bluetooth, dual core, more peripherals
ESP32-C / -S 2020+ RISC-V cores, USB, security features

Where it fits

By making a wireless-capable microcontroller cheap and easy to program, Espressif helped make networked embedded projects routine. An ESP32 makes a tidy little wireless sensor or telemetry node — for example, reporting status or environmental data from a remote GopherTrunk antenna site back over Wi-Fi — while the heavy radio decoding stays on a larger host.

Sources

  1. Espressif Systems — Wikipedia, for the company’s history and products. ↩

  2. Espressif — the company’s official site, for its chips and SDKs. ↩

See also

Learn it step by step