Introduction
The Waveshare ESP32-P4-WIFI6-DEV-KIT is a multimedia development board built around the Espressif ESP32-P4 application processor. It combines high-performance computing, display and camera interfaces, a complete audio subsystem, and wireless connectivity into a single board designed for rapid prototyping.
Dual-chip architecture
Section titled “Dual-chip architecture”The board uses two Espressif chips in a co-processor arrangement:
ESP32-P4 (main processor) : A 32-bit dual-core RISC-V MCU targeting 400 MHz clock speed. It handles all application logic, display rendering, camera capture, audio processing, and peripheral I/O. The chip includes 32 MB of stacked PSRAM and is paired with 16 MB of external NOR flash.
ESP32-C6 (wireless co-processor) : Connected to the ESP32-P4 over an SDIO bus, the C6 provides WiFi 6 (802.11ax) at 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 5 Low Energy. The main processor delegates all wireless operations to the C6, keeping the radio stack isolated from the application workload.
This separation means the P4’s processing budget is fully available for your application. Wireless traffic is handled by dedicated hardware rather than sharing CPU cycles.
Key use cases
Section titled “Key use cases”Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) : The MIPI-DSI display output supports screens from 5” to 10.1” with JPEG decode at 1080p 30 fps. The integrated Pixel Processing Accelerator (PPA) and 2D-DMA handle graphics compositing in hardware. Combined with LVGL or other GUI frameworks, this makes the board well-suited for industrial panels, kiosks, and embedded dashboards.
Edge computing and multimedia : With a dual-core RISC-V processor, 32 MB PSRAM, MIPI-CSI camera input with an integrated ISP, and H.264 encoding at 1080p 30 fps, the board can capture, process, and encode video at the edge. Audio capture and playback are handled by the onboard ES8311 codec and microphone.
IoT and connected devices : WiFi 6 provides improved performance in dense RF environments compared to WiFi 4/5, with better power management through Target Wake Time (TWT). Bluetooth 5 LE enables low-power sensor networks and device provisioning. The 100M Ethernet jack and PoE header support wired deployments.
Prototyping and development : The 40-pin GPIO header exposes 27 programmable pins including I2C, I3C, and UART. USB 2.0 OTG at high speed (480 Mbps) supports both host and device modes. The TF card slot provides expandable storage. Two USB-C ports handle flashing, debugging, and power delivery.
Security
Section titled “Security”The ESP32-P4 includes a digital signature peripheral that performs RSA signing operations using private keys stored in eFuse. The keys are never exposed to software — the signing operation is handled entirely in hardware. This enables secure boot chains and TLS client authentication without risking key extraction.
Additional security features include:
- AES, SHA, and RSA hardware accelerators
- Secure boot with signature verification
- Flash encryption
- eFuse-based key storage with read protection
Software support
Section titled “Software support”The board is supported by both major ESP32 development frameworks:
- ESP-IDF (Espressif IoT Development Framework) — the official C/C++ SDK with full access to all hardware features including MIPI-DSI, MIPI-CSI, H.264 encoding, and the audio subsystem.
- Arduino — via the Arduino-ESP32 core, with access to GPIO, display (through GFX_Library_for_Arduino), audio, and WiFi functionality.
ESP-IDF is recommended for projects that need full access to the P4’s multimedia capabilities. The Arduino environment is suitable for simpler applications and faster iteration.
Hardware details sourced from the Waveshare ESP32-P4-WIFI6-DEV-KIT Wiki.