The Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 is a low power MCU built around the Espressif ESP32-S3 SoC from Espressif. As other ESP32 based devices, Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 supports Wi-Fi/BLE 5.0, a 3.7V external battery and several I/O peripherals.

Unlike the ESP32-C3 featured yesterday, the ESP32-S3 integrates a dual core Tensilica LX7 with a five-stage pipeline and a maximum frequency of 240MHz. The CPU also supports single-precision floating point unit (FPU), 32 interrupts at six priority levels and a 128-bit data bus to increase computing performance. 

ESP32-S3 block diagram
(click image to enlarge)

Similarly to the ESP32-C3, the internal memory of the ESP32-S3 includes 384KB of ROM for booting, 320KB of on-chip SRAM for data and instructions. However, the Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 provides up to 8MB of external Flash and 2MB of External PSRAM.

Banana Pi BPI Leaf-S3 front (left) and back (right)
(click images to enlarge)

Like the ESP32-C3, the ESP32-S3 is IEEE 802.11 b/g/n-compliant and supports 20MHz and 40MHz bandwidth in the 2.4GHz band with speeds up to 150Mbps. The Bluetooth LE has speeds of 125Kbps, 500kbps, 1Mbps and 2Mbps.

The Banana Pi BPI Leaf-S3 seems to offer more I/O peripherals than the ESP32-C3. For example, there is support for four SPI, two I2C, two I2S, three UART, eight PWM and a lot more. See the pinout image below for exact info. The Banana Pi Wiki also listed a comparison table between their board and the ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 from Espressif.

Banana Pi BPI Leaf-S3 comparison table and interfaces
(click images to enlarge)

For software development, the Banana Pi wiki has listed Espressif ESP-IDF, MicroPython and Arduino as the supported IDEs. Refer to the Software section using this link for more information.

Specifications listed for the Banana Pi BPI Leaf-S3 include:

• Processor System:
  •  ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 (up to 240 MHz)
• Memory/Storage:
  • 384KB ROM (Internal)
  • 320KB SRAM (Internal)
  • 8MB External Flash ROM
  • 2MB External PSRAM
• Connectivity:
  • Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g/n @2.4Ghz
  • Bluetooth 5.0/Bluetooth mesh
• Camera/Display:
  • 1× DVP 8-bit~16-bit camera interface
  • 1× LCD interface (8-bit~16-bit parallel RGB)
• USB:
  • 1x USB Type-C 
• I/O Interfaces:
  • 3x UART, 2x I2C, 2x IIS, 4x SPI
  • 8x PWM (14-bits), 12x ADC, 14x touch pins
• Other Features:
  • 1x Reset button 
  • 1x Boot button
  • 1x JTAG 
  • 1x 3.7V Battery connector
• Security:
  • AES-128/256, Hash, RSA, HMAC support
  • Digital signature, Secure boot
• Power:
  • 5V (USB Type-C)
  • Deep sleep consumption – 10uA
• Operating Temperature:
  • -40℃ to 85℃
• Dimensions:
  • 65.25 x 26 mm

Further information

The Banana Pi BPI Leaf-S3 was first seen on CNX-Software and as the site mentioned this tiny device can be found for $7.50 on AliExpress.