ESP32C3 USB & UART Download Mode

The ESP32-C3 supports two ways to download the firmware: UART0 and USB.

• The BootMode for ESP32-C3 as follows:
  
  This order of the 4 bits can be summarized as follows:
  

1 Download the firmware using the UART pins

• Please refer to " The hardware conditions for the ESP32-C3 chip to enter the " Download Mode" " introductions.
• Please refer to the 《ESP32-C3 Datasheet》 about " Srtapping Pins " instructions.

2 Download the firmware using the USB pins

• The ESP32-C3 chip has a built-in USB Serial/JTAG Controller, which supports use USB pins to download firmware 、print the log , and JTAG debugging.

• The ESP32-C3 has no built-in USB-OTG (USB Host and USB Device are not supported), it does not support the secondary development of universal USB applications.
  

• For the hardware requirements for use USB pins to download firmware, please refer to the " USB Serial/JTAG Controller Console " guide.

• ESP32-C3 only supports USB CDC download mode.

• Connect ESP32-C3 to the USB port as follows:
  

• The USB hardware schematic diagram as follows:
  

• Based on the ESP-IDF software compilation environment, you need to set the following configs when downloading firmware using the USB pins:

Note: USB download mode is only supported on ESP-IDF v4.4 or later version.

menuconfig → Component config → ESP System Settings → Channel for console output → USB Serial/JTAG Controller

• To query USB ports on Ubuntu environment:

  ll /dev/ttyACM*
  

• The ESP32-C3 uses USB CDC mode to download firmware command

  idf.py -p /dev/ttyACM* flash monitor
  

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3 【Introductions】

• When you using the USB pins to download firmware , you can also using the USB pins to print program running logs .

• Under the " SPI_DOWNLOAD_BOOT " and " UART0_BOOT" modes, it is not supported use USB pins to download firmware.

• Both download modes are supported when the hardware conditions for downloading firmware using UART pins and downloading firmware using USB pins are met at the same time.

• But the idf.py flash command will default use the UART download mode. In USB download mode, you need to specify the USB port number and run the idf.py -p /dev/ttyACM0 flash command to download firmware.

• If your computer environment does not recognize ESP32-C3 devices, please refer to the " Establish Serial Connection with ESP32-C3 " guide .