BL602/BL604 RISC-V WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 SoC will sell at ESP8266 price point
We've seen ESP8266 and ESP32 succeed tremendously in the maker space. We've yet to see widespread adoption in commercial and professional applications - that's coming, but I am surprised why IP for bluetooth/wifi is so expensive outside of Chinese chip makers? ST, NXP, Microchip, Renesas, etc. have really expensive SoCs - $15/chip and over. These giants seem to be sleeping. What's preventing them from competing with the Chinese?<p>Also, we have horrendous price gouging for memory. A mere 128k to 256k bump in memory spec on a microcontroller will send you back a $1.20 in chip price.<p>Is there some CCP-gov subsidy going on to capture the market? Espressif's ESP32 is such an extraordinary chip with 500kb+ memory and yet, it is an order of magnitude cheaper than anything close from western suppliers. What gives?