4 ms·

New Arduino released: the 32bit Due

81 points by zaaaaz 14y ago

spiritplumber 14y ago
So it does in 2012 what the Parallax Propeller did in 2006. Will the wonders ever cease?
- meaty 14y ago
  Yes and what we could do in an FPGA in 1998...
  - spiritplumber 14y ago
    True, but FPGAs are harder to code for, and more expensive. I work with both platforms and find them about as easy to code on, with the Prop costing a little less but requiring external parts to do ADC/DAC.
    - blackguardx 14y ago
      FPGAs have gotten pretty cheap nowadays. They also aren't that difficult to program if you know Verilog.
      - yzhou 14y ago
        we have made a A3P250 FPGA board, with build-in USB interface, total cost of building the board is less than $50, can do a ton of things MCU can not do. would anyone want it if we commercialize it? http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0117/1482/products/IMG_0305_1024x1024.jpg?384 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0117/1482/products/IMG_0305... The design was based on http://skywired.net/blog/projects/a3pn250-fpga-breakout-board/ http://skywired.net/blog/projects/a3pn250-fpga-breakout-boar..., added regulator chips, got rid of the power-on-reset chips.
        wisty 14y ago
        If you're not sure, you could start a Kickstarter. That's what it's for - products which are only viable if a certain number of people put down cash.
        dmboyd 14y ago
        How does the actel toolkit compare with the xilinx toolkit?
- revelation 14y ago
  The value in the Arduino is not necessarily in the actual processor, but in the tools, documentation, tutorials and library supplied with the boards. And of course in its large community of users and addons ('shields').
  - nnnnni 14y ago
    Plus the whole "open source hardware" thing...
- Sanddancer 14y ago
  It does a hell of a lot more than what the propeller can. The chip they use has on-board ADCs and DACs, which makes it a lot easier to interface with analog signals out of the box. It also has a lot more RAM, DMA access so you don't need to use CPU clocks to pull things in and out of memory, support for pretty much any bus you need -- on-board USB slave and host, SPI, I2C, CAN, etc -- for talking to anything in the world. The Propeller was an interesting chip 6 years ago, but the world's more than caught up and surpassed it, with its only saving grace being that it's a cheap multicore chip, but even then, the XMOS chips are far more interesting there.
starik36 14y ago
I think the G120 and/or G120HDR boards are so much better. Much faster, a ton more memory, full tcp stack and you get to program in a high level language: C#. This also means that there are a ton of libraries, should you need any. And the price is the same. https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/373 https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/373 https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/388 https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/388
- nnnnni 14y ago
  ...but can you then rebuild the board on your own PCB so that each project doesn't use up the expense of a whole G120?
  - akiselev 14y ago
    Yes, but there are some annoying licensing issues, especially with GHI's proprietary libraries (for microchips wifi module, for example).
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Interesting, I tried to read the article and my browser (Chrome V22) went nuts. I don't know what sort of JS wired is pushing these days but from this side of the screen it made their site unusable. Sad really. So I went to the http://arduino.cc http://arduino.cc site ('official Arduino site') and it has no news about a 32 bit Arduino. Ther is an article on Hackaday though : http://hackaday.com/2012/10/03/finally-an-arm-powered-arduino/ http://hackaday.com/2012/10/03/finally-an-arm-powered-arduin... Having recently read about the Sony Nexus fake I find myself even more distrustful of tech journalists. From the hackaday article it looks like it could be an improvement on the original concept.
- angusgr 14y ago
  Weird. FWIW I'm on 22.0.1229.94 Ubuntu 12.10 (161065) and it rendered fine.
- catch23 14y ago
  The arduino.cc link is: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoDUE http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoDUE It says the page will be available on Monday, when you can buy it.
jalada 14y ago
Two DACs. Brilliant!
dccoolgai 14y ago
Looks like a lot of cool stuff on-board..anyone know if the Due will be compatible with older shields?
- Ecio78 14y ago
  from the article: The Due will continue to work with all Arduino shields [..] that conform to the official Arduino Revision 3 layout. However, the Due operates at 3.3V whereas AVR-based Arduinos operate at 5V, meaning some third-party shields that don’t follow the R3 specs to the letter may not be compatible [..]
ISL 14y ago
12-bit ADCs! Woohoo! If they ever reach 16-bits (or beyond!), our lab may buy them weekly. The 10-bit resolution of the Arduino ADC is the biggest single thing that's kept us from switching to them for general-purpose DAQ. The speed with which Physics undergrads can pick up the Arduino environment trumps anything else we use. Yes, we can implement I2C/SPI communication to another ADC chip, but the development environment isn't nearly as stable (chips and vendor-specific serial protocols change). The knowledge that the Arduino codebase should remain moderately stable over time makes it worth our trouble to develop for it. Thank you, Arduino-folk!
- ascine 14y ago
  The PSoC chip in the freeSoC board (http://freesoc.net/ http://freesoc.net/) can do upto 20-bits but the IDE isn't as simple to use as Arduino's.
jipumarino 14y ago
How does this compare to the Teensy 3.0?

81 points by zaaaaz 14y ago

spiritplumber 14y ago

So it does in 2012 what the Parallax Propeller did in 2006. Will the wonders ever cease?

meaty 14y ago
Yes and what we could do in an FPGA in 1998...
- spiritplumber 14y ago
  True, but FPGAs are harder to code for, and more expensive. I work with both platforms and find them about as easy to code on, with the Prop costing a little less but requiring external parts to do ADC/DAC.
  - blackguardx 14y ago
    FPGAs have gotten pretty cheap nowadays. They also aren't that difficult to program if you know Verilog.
    - yzhou 14y ago
      we have made a A3P250 FPGA board, with build-in USB interface, total cost of building the board is less than $50, can do a ton of things MCU can not do. would anyone want it if we commercialize it? http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0117/1482/products/IMG_0305_1024x1024.jpg?384 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0117/1482/products/IMG_0305... The design was based on http://skywired.net/blog/projects/a3pn250-fpga-breakout-board/ http://skywired.net/blog/projects/a3pn250-fpga-breakout-boar..., added regulator chips, got rid of the power-on-reset chips.
      - wisty 14y ago
        If you're not sure, you could start a Kickstarter. That's what it's for - products which are only viable if a certain number of people put down cash.
      - dmboyd 14y ago
        How does the actel toolkit compare with the xilinx toolkit?
revelation 14y ago
The value in the Arduino is not necessarily in the actual processor, but in the tools, documentation, tutorials and library supplied with the boards. And of course in its large community of users and addons ('shields').
- nnnnni 14y ago
  Plus the whole "open source hardware" thing...
Sanddancer 14y ago
It does a hell of a lot more than what the propeller can. The chip they use has on-board ADCs and DACs, which makes it a lot easier to interface with analog signals out of the box. It also has a lot more RAM, DMA access so you don't need to use CPU clocks to pull things in and out of memory, support for pretty much any bus you need -- on-board USB slave and host, SPI, I2C, CAN, etc -- for talking to anything in the world. The Propeller was an interesting chip 6 years ago, but the world's more than caught up and surpassed it, with its only saving grace being that it's a cheap multicore chip, but even then, the XMOS chips are far more interesting there.

starik36 14y ago

I think the G120 and/or G120HDR boards are so much better. Much faster, a ton more memory, full tcp stack and you get to program in a high level language: C#. This also means that there are a ton of libraries, should you need any. And the price is the same. https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/373 https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/373 https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/388 https://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/388

nnnnni 14y ago
...but can you then rebuild the board on your own PCB so that each project doesn't use up the expense of a whole G120?
- akiselev 14y ago
  Yes, but there are some annoying licensing issues, especially with GHI's proprietary libraries (for microchips wifi module, for example).

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Interesting, I tried to read the article and my browser (Chrome V22) went nuts. I don't know what sort of JS wired is pushing these days but from this side of the screen it made their site unusable. Sad really. So I went to the http://arduino.cc http://arduino.cc site ('official Arduino site') and it has no news about a 32 bit Arduino. Ther is an article on Hackaday though : http://hackaday.com/2012/10/03/finally-an-arm-powered-arduino/ http://hackaday.com/2012/10/03/finally-an-arm-powered-arduin... Having recently read about the Sony Nexus fake I find myself even more distrustful of tech journalists. From the hackaday article it looks like it could be an improvement on the original concept.

angusgr 14y ago
Weird. FWIW I'm on 22.0.1229.94 Ubuntu 12.10 (161065) and it rendered fine.
catch23 14y ago
The arduino.cc link is: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoDUE http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoDUE It says the page will be available on Monday, when you can buy it.

jalada 14y ago

Two DACs. Brilliant!

dccoolgai 14y ago

Looks like a lot of cool stuff on-board..anyone know if the Due will be compatible with older shields?

Ecio78 14y ago
from the article: The Due will continue to work with all Arduino shields [..] that conform to the official Arduino Revision 3 layout. However, the Due operates at 3.3V whereas AVR-based Arduinos operate at 5V, meaning some third-party shields that don’t follow the R3 specs to the letter may not be compatible [..]

ISL 14y ago

12-bit ADCs! Woohoo! If they ever reach 16-bits (or beyond!), our lab may buy them weekly. The 10-bit resolution of the Arduino ADC is the biggest single thing that's kept us from switching to them for general-purpose DAQ. The speed with which Physics undergrads can pick up the Arduino environment trumps anything else we use. Yes, we can implement I2C/SPI communication to another ADC chip, but the development environment isn't nearly as stable (chips and vendor-specific serial protocols change). The knowledge that the Arduino codebase should remain moderately stable over time makes it worth our trouble to develop for it. Thank you, Arduino-folk!

ascine 14y ago
The PSoC chip in the freeSoC board (http://freesoc.net/ http://freesoc.net/) can do upto 20-bits but the IDE isn't as simple to use as Arduino's.

jipumarino 14y ago

How does this compare to the Teensy 3.0?