ESP8266-EXPA

thingSoC Reference Design
ESP8266-EXPA is a an example Wi-Fi Client/Access Point, thingSoC reference design; utilizing a thingSoC Interface Bridge, System-on-Chip device.

ESP8266-EXPA includes an ESP8266-07 format Wi-Fi module, along with thingSoC Interface Bridge, System-on-Chip device, 1MBit of high-speed, nonvolitile FRAM, and status LED's.

ESP8266-EXPA Features :

ESP8266 : High Performance 802.11b/g Wi-Fi module
FM24V10 : (optional) 1Mbit (128K x 8 Bits) FRAM Storage Device
CY8C82XXX : thingSoC Interface Bridge, System-on-Chip device
MIC5504 : Onboard LDO for battery operation
Status LED : Power, Status, Receive, Transmit
thingSoC : BB-20-Single Form Factor

thingSoC Interface Bridge, System-on-Chip Device :

Standard thingSoC Autoidentification and configuration.
Controls and Monitors all ESP8266 GPIO pins at once.
Easily change modes for simple firmware updates, no jumpers!
All ESP8266 GPIO & Reset settings available via I2C1 bus registers.
Operates from a single Cell Li-Po Battery
Adds Power Management (PMIC) and Real-Time Clock.
Usable standalone, or in a thingSoC socket.
Source code and project files included in the Github Repo.

The program code for the thingSoC Interface Bridge comes pre-loaded, and is normally not modfied by the user. (It is however, open source, and you are free to change it if you like...)

thingSoC Interface Bridge : Theory of Operation

The CY8C28XXX System-on-Chip device used is configured to contain :

UART1 to interface with the thingSoC Socket
I2C1 to interface with the thingSoC Socket (EEPROM Emulation)
UART2 to interface with the ESP8266 Wi-FI module UART
I2C2 to interface with the 128K x 8 Bit FRAM Storage Device
GPIO(12) to interface with the ESP8266 Wi-FI module GPIO, RST & ADC
GPIO(4) to interface with SHUTDOWN, STATUS, and TX/RX LED's

The thingSoC Interface Bridge provides three(3) main functions,

Acts as an I2C EEPROM (default address 0x56) for thingSoC Autoidentification.
Acts as a UART bridge between the thingSoC socket and the ESP8266 Wi-FI module UART
Allows the user to control and monitor all GPIO using I2C commands.

Most of the other ESP8266 designs out there have an annoying amount of jumpers to configure or solder in order to make changes to the boot modes, reflash the device, or utilize the GPIO functions. the thingSoC Interface Bridge make it much simpler to use and control the ESP8266.

ESP8266 Resources :

Reference Design Status :

Untested PCB Layout, prototypes on order 5/9/2015 (stay tuned, it's coming...)
Schematic Diagram
Layout Diagram

Open Source Hardware

thingSoC Reference Designs are example thingSoC implementations that implement various reference and testing circuits for demonstrating the use of the thingSoC libraries. These reference designs can serve as starting templates for user designs.