Phyx's LANA TNY Is a RISC-V, Fine-Pitched Twist on the Adafruit QT Py and Seeed XIAO Range

Belgian open source electronics specialist Phyx has designed a low-cost, compact development board in the style of Adafruit's QT Py and Seeed Studio's XIAO families — but featuring the WCH Electronics CH32V203 RISC-V microcontroller at its heart: the LANA TNY.

"LANA is a small development board based around the WCH CH32V203 RISC-V microcontroller," Phyx' Wim Van Gool and Gert Van Gool write of their creation. "TNY is our take on the Adafruit QT Py and Seeed Studio XIAO specifications but with added SMD [Surface Mount Device] pins for optional extra IO [Input/Output] capabilities and a built in WS2811 compatible LED output."

The heart of the compact board is, as the Van Gools say, WCH Electronics' ultar-low-cost CH32V203 — a 32-bit microcontroller based on the free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture and running at up to 144MHz. There's 10kB of static RAM (SRAM) on board, plus 32kB of high-speed flash and an additional 244kB of external flash with execute-in-place (XIP) support.

It's the board's design, more than the microcontroller on top, that intrigues, though. At first glance, it's a clone of a QT Py or a XIAO — complete with USB Type-C connector for data and power and two rows of 0.1" breadboard-friendly pin-headers to either side for the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) connectivity. A closer look, though, reveals castellations that don't quite line up with the 0.1" holes — and which, instead, provide access to all the full-size 0.1" pins plus a range of additional GPIO signals that would be otherwise inaccessible.

For software support, Phyx recommends the board be programmed using the Embeetle IDE, which includes official support, the Arduino IDE with the WCH32 core installed, Platform.io with WCH-Link, Charles Lohr's CH32V003fun, or WCH's own MounRiver Studio. "The CH32V203 has an USB bootloader that can be activated by holding down the button when plugging in the USB cable," the Van Gools explains. "Alternatively you could opt to use a WCH-Link programmer and debugger to connect to the exposed SWD [Serial Wire Debug] pins."

"LANA is a small development board based around the WCH CH32V203 RISC-V microcontroller," Phyx's Wim Van Gool and Gert Van Gool write of their creation. "TNY is our take on the Adafruit QT Py and Seeed Studio XIAO specifications but with added SMD [Surface Mount Device] pins for optional extra IO [Input/Output] capabilities and a built in WS2811 compatible LED output."