Espressif Systems ESP32-C6 Ultra-Low-Power System-on-Chips (SoCs)

Espressif Systems ESP32-C6 Ultra-Low-Power System-on-Chips (SoCs) support Wi-Fi 6 in the 2.4GHz band, BLUETOOTH® 5, Zigbee® 3.0, and Thread 1.3. The SoCs consist of a high-performance (HP) 32-bit RISC-V processor, a low-power (LP) 32-bit RISC-V processor, a wireless baseband/MAC (Wi-Fi, BLUETOOTH LE, and 802.15.4), RF module, and numerous peripherals. Wi-Fi, BLUETOOTH, and 802.15.4 coexist with each other and share the same antenna.

Features

  • Wi-Fi
    • 1T1R in 2.4GHz band
    • 2412MHz to 2484MHz operating frequency range
    • IEEE 802.11ax-compliant
      • 20MHz-only non-AP mode
      • MCS0 to MCS9
      • Uplink and downlink OFDMA, especially suitable for simultaneous connections in high-density environments
      • Downlink MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple input, multiple output) to increase network capacity
      • Beamformee that improves signal quality
      • Channel quality indication (CQI)
      • DCM (dual carrier modulation) to improve link robustness
      • Spatial reuse to maximize parallel transmissions
      • Target wake time (TWT) that optimizes power-saving mechanisms
    • Fully compatible with IEEE 802.11b/g/n protocol
      • 20MHz and 40MHz bandwidth
      • Data rate up to 150Mbps
      • Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM)
      • TX/RX A-MPDU, TX/RX A-MSDU
      • Immediate Block ACK
      • Fragmentation and defragmentation
      • Transmit opportunity (TXOP)
      • Automatic Beacon monitoring (hardware TSF)
      • 4x virtual Wi-Fi interfaces
      • Simultaneous support for Infrastructure BSS in Station mode, SoftAP mode, Station + SoftAP mode, and promiscuous mode (Note: when ESP32-C6 scans in Station mode, the SoftAP channel will change along with the Station channel)
      • Antenna diversity
      • 802.11mc FTM
  • BLUETOOTH
    • BLUETOOTH LE, BLUETOOTH 5.3 certified
    • BLUETOOTH mesh
    • High power mode (20dBm)
    • 125Kbps, 500Kbps, 1Mbps, and 2Mbps speeds
    • Advertising extensions
    • Multiple advertisement sets
    • Channel selection algorithm #2
    • LE power control
    • Internal co-existence mechanism between Wi-Fi and BLUETOOTH to share the same antenna
  • IEEE 802.15.4
    • Compliant with IEEE 802.15.4-2015 protocol
    • OQPSK PHY in 2.4GHz band
    • 250Kbps Data rate: 
    • Thread 1.3
    • Zigbee® 3.0
  • CPU and memory
    • HP RISC-V processor
      • Up to 160MHz clock speed
      • 4-stage pipeline
      • CoreMark® scores - 441.32 CoreMark;2.76 CoreMark/MHz (160MHz)
    • LP RISC-V processor
      • Up to 20MHz clock speed
      • 2-stage pipeline
    • 32KB L1 cache
    • 320KB ROM
    • 512KB HP SRAM
    • 16KB LP SRAM
    • Supported SPI protocols - SPI, Dual SPI, Quad SPI, and QPI interfaces that allow connection to flash and other SPI devices off the chip’s package
    • Flash controller with cache is supported
    • Flash In-Circuit Programming (ICP) is supported
  • Advanced peripheral interfaces
    • 30x GPIOs (QFN40) or 22x GPIOs (QFN32)
    • Analog interfaces
      • 1x 12-bit SAR ADC, up to 7x channels
      • 1x temperature sensor
    • Digital interfaces
      • 2x UART
      • 1x Low-Power (LP) UART
      • 2x SPI ports for communication with flash
      • 1x general-purpose SPI port
      • 1x I2C
      • 1x Low-Power (LP) I2C
      • 1x I2S
      • 1x pulse count controller
      • 1x USB Serial/JTAG controller
      • 2x TWAI® controller, compatible with ISO 11898-1 (CAN specification 2.0)
      • 1x SDIO 2.0 slave controller
      • LED PWM controller, up to 6x channels
      • 1x Motor Control PWM (MCPWM)
      • 1x remote control peripheral (TX/RX)
      • 1x Parallel I/O interface (PARLIO)
      • General DMA controller, with 3x transmit channels and 3x receive channels
      • Event Task Matrix (ETM)
    • Timers
      • 1x 52-bit system timer
      • 2x 54-bit general-purpose timers
      • 3x digital watchdog timers
      • 1x analog watchdog timer
  • Power management
    • Fine-resolution power control through a selection of clock frequency, duty cycle, Wi-Fi operating modes, and individual power control of internal components
    • 4x power modes designed for typical scenarios - Active, Modem-sleep, Light-sleep, and Deep-sleep
    • Power consumption in Deep-sleep mode is 7µA
    • Low-Power (LP) memory remains powered on in Deep-sleep mode
  • Security
    • Secure boot - permission control on accessing internal and external memory
    • Flash encryption - memory encryption and decryption
    • 4096-bit OTP, up to 1792-bits for users
    • Trusted execution environment (TEE) controller and access permission management (APM)
    • Cryptographic hardware acceleration
      • AES-128/256 (FIPS PUB 197)
      • ECC
      • HMAC
      • RSA
      • SHA
      • Digital signature
      • Hash (FIPS PUB 180-4)
    • External Memory Encryption and Decryption (XTS_AES)
    • Random Number Generator (RNG)
  • RF module
    • Antenna switches, RF balun, power amplifier, low-noise receive amplifier
    • Up to +21dBm of power for an 802.11b transmission
    • Up to +19.5dBm of power for an 802.11ax transmission
    • Up to -106dBm of sensitivity for BLUETOOTH LE receiver (125Kbps)
  • Package options
    • 5mm2 QFN-40
    • 5mm2 QFN-32

Applications

  • Smart home
  • Industrial automation
  • Healthcare
  • Consumer electronics
  • Smart agriculture
  • Point-of-sale (POS) machines
  • Service robots
  • Audio devices
  • Generic low-power IoT
    • Sensor hubs
    • Data loggers

Specifications

  • 3.0V to 3.6V input
  • 100kSPS (kilo samples-per-second) maximum ADC sampling rate
  • 2412MHz to 2484MHz Wi-Fi radio center frequency range of the operating channel
  • 2405MHz to 2480MHz 802.15.4 radio center frequency range of the operating channel
  • BLUETOOTH LE radio
    • 2402MHz to 2480MHz center frequency range of the operating channel
    • -15.0dBm to 20.0dBm RF transmit power range
  • 2pF typical pin capacitance
  • -40°C to +105°C ambient temperature range

Functional Block Diagram

Block Diagram - Espressif Systems ESP32-C6 Ultra-Low-Power System-on-Chips (SoCs)
Published: 2023-08-30 | Updated: 2025-06-26