The METRO series just keeps getting faster and better, now powered with the ESP32-P4! This beast is a dual-core 360 MHz RISC-V CPU featuring AI instruction extensions, an advanced memory subsystem, and integrated new high-speed peripherals like MIPI DSI and CSI. According to Espressif, the P4 is tailored for high-performance applications demanding robust security and bumps the performance of their ESP32 line to 'single-board computing' levels. Given it's high speed, massive pin-count, and display/camera integration plus lots of SRAM/PSRAM/Flash memory, the ESP32-P4 is excellent for Human-Machine Interfaces, efficient edge computing, and increased IO-connectivity demands.

This board features a ESP32-P4 with the stock 768 KB L2 cache/SRAM, plus extenral 16 MB of QSPI NOR Flash and 16 MB of PSRAM.

PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT the ESP32-P4X chip, we are currently shipping with "v1" chips, if you need the "v3" P4X do not purchase this item!

The chip itself features (Espressif specifications):

• Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V processor, up to 360 MHz.
• Separate 40 MHz low-power RISC-V core.
• 768 KB high-performance SRAM, plus 32 KB low-power SRAM.
• 16 MB PSRAM internally
• Two-lane MIPI DSI display and two-lane MIPI CSI camera interfaces.
• Hardware H.264 encoding, JPEG encoding/decoding, image processing, and pixel acceleration.
• Full-Speed USB OTG, and USB Serial/JTAG. (Main USB-C port)
• Separate 480 Mbps USB 2.0 High-Speed OTG (Secondary USB-A host port)
• UART, SPI, I²C, I3C, I²S, PWM, ADC, touch sensing, SD/MMC, CAN/TWAI, and Ethernet MAC peripherals.
• Hardware cryptography, secure boot, and flash encryption.

Our Metro ESP32-P4 Hydra brings that into a board with:

• 16 MB NOR flash
• ESP32-C6 wireless coprocessor (C6 specifications), connected over SDIO for high speed WiFi access, the C6 radio also supports Bluetooth LE 5.3, Thread, and Zigbee but interfacing firmware may be required to expose that.  The C6 can also be reprogrammed over GPIO connected to the P4
• USB-C for power, programming, serial debugging, and TinyUF2 drag-and-drop firmware update support
• USB-A High-Speed host port, with software-controlled power and a dedicated 5 V boost supply for battery operation, with on/off control
• Separate 22-pin, 0.5 mm-pitch MIPI display and camera connectors, each carrying two data lanes. These follow the "Raspberry Pi" format with 2 lanes exposed for connecting off-the-shelf cameras and displays
• microSD socket using four-bit SDIO
• Metro/Arduino Uno-style headers with D0–D13, six analog inputs, I2C/I3C, and a separate six-pin SPI header - all GPIO uses 3.3 V logic
• STEMMA QT connector for I2C/I3C sensors and accessories
• Variety of Power options: 7–12 V DC barrel-jack input, USB C power, or a single-cell LiPo battery connector with battery-voltage monitoring, onboard charging & charging/status indicators
• On/Off power switch
• RGB NeoPixel, separate D13 user LED, and Reset and Boot buttons (for entering the ROM bootloader)
• Dedicated hardware/ROM UART debugging connection

Thanks to the built-in DSI display and CSI camera connectors, we can re-use many Raspberry Pi-compatible displays (with 2 lanes) and "Zero v1" cameras just by plugging them in!

Displays with 2 Lane DSI and 22-pin connector:

• 7″ Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 - 720x1280, with capacitive touch
• 5″ Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 -  720x1280, with capacitive touch

Cameras with 2 Lane CSI and 22-pin connector:

• Zero Spy Camera with 70° lens (OV5647)
• Zero Spy Camera with 120° wide-angle lens (OV5647)
• Zero Spy Camera with160° fisheye lens (OV5647)
• Note that IMX708 "v3" cameras aren't supported!