Arduino DUE (32 bit) Now Available | Hacker News Reader

Arduino DUE (32 bit) Now Available

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50 pointsbencevans37 comments

You might also consider a STM32F4DISCOVERY board:

http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp

This is also a ARM Cortex board but it's $15 and in stock everywhere. (I think it's more powerful and has more features than the Due, but I haven't checked in detail. At $15, though, it can't be beat. And there are less powerful boards in the series that are even cheaper!)

I'll second the STM32 series of microcontrollers. We're using an STM32F100 chip for instrument control, and it was easy to include it on a custom PCB. It has many timers, and the performance per watt-dollar is amazing (as it is with any ARM chip). The STM32 series can be programmed with the gcc toolchain, or a number of commercial compilers (Keil, etc.). I've taken to using MikroE's compiler: http://www.mikroe.com/mikroc/arm/

Another alternative would be TI's Stellaris line. They have an inexpensive "launchpad" dev board: http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/stellaris_head.html?DCMP=s...

The downside to both of these is that they lack the ecosystem that makes Arduino magical.

Before the Due, the Maple board came out to provide an ARM board for the Arduino software: http://leaflabs.com/devices/maple/

As a side note, if anyone has experience working with the wireless version of the STM32 (the STM32W), I'd love to hear from you. I'm considering it for another product, but don't want to bother if there are serious problems or if the RF side doesn't work well.

I've been looking at several uCs, in particular the Cypress Semi PSoC5 system for the system-on-chip functionality and the great toolchain, but also the very cheap TI Stellaris series. But there are so many highly capable products out there these days, it's hard to know which one is the best; I feel like a first-time computer buyer trying to choose between Mac and Windows without really knowing much about either.

Are there any resources you'd recommend for people trying to choose their development platform? I have specific reasons for liking the cypress system-on-chips (massive i/o, extensive software config capabilities, toolchain support for my intended application of audio/MIDI), but it's hard to size up all the different options.

I'd just say: try them. I learned microcontrollers with Basic stamps (many years ago), bought a Teensy a few years ago and learned AVR (avoiding Arduino for various reasons), and am now learning the STM ARM stuff.

My biggest takeaway is that teaching hardware people about unit tests would make humanity as a whole about 93% more productive :)

Came to say something similar. We've not really felt the impact that ARM is going to make in this space yet but its here.

It is fascinating to see what the various ARM chip makers have included (or not) on their chips and how. The ST Micro guys seem to 'get' that a lot of RAM is a good thing for prototyping. I've got one of their Butterfly boards (STM32F4DISCOVERY [1]) and the 192K of RAM is nice for doing development work. It doesn't have the Arduino software stack though.

The Stellaris parts seem a bit more resource constrained (I've got one of those too :-) Basically there are a number of different ARM parts that make for easy to use, inexpensive, embedded systems.

On the Due I'm glad they brought out the JTAG connector because you can get a nice JTAG debugging pod (SAM-ICE) which is a relabeled Segger pod for not much money. Getting debug support on something other than windows for some of the other parts is a bit dicey.

[1] http://www.st.com/internet/com/TECHNICAL_RESOURCES/TECHNICAL...

I'll second this recommandation. This kit became is my go-to choice for prototyping more complex microcontroller projects. Plenty of peripherals, flexible pin muxing, good documentation and the ARM core is quite fast. Finally, I almost forgot about the open source HW debugger to GDB bridge[0].

I actually wrote a set of drivers, libraries and a build system to allow easy prototyping (like Arduino) but also enable access to the more complex features of the SoC.

[0] https://github.com/texane/stlink

Sorry to tag on to your comment with a separate thread - but what do you make of the "Freedom Board" [1]? (Cortex-M0+ MCU with 128KB flash, 16KB SRAM, up to 48MHz operation, $13 in stock)

[1] http://www.element14.com/community/community/knode/dev_platf...

Looks less powerful but has a "touch slider". For $13 just try it and see, right? :)

While we are on eval suggestions - MBED [1] has always sounded interesting to me - primarily because of the concept of a collaborative web-based compiler that works from anywhere.

Seems aimed at prototyping and ease of use for non-hardware developers (who are familiar with C/C++) , but looks like there is a straightforward route towards mass production just using the microcontroller if required.

[1] http://mbed.org/

I am new to Arduino but very interested in starting. So far I have read that the Uno R3 is the best for beginners but now that the new Due is out will this be preferable for a beginner?

From what I've read, the Due is faster and able to handle more things. But is it easier to use compared to the Uno?

As you say the Due is faster however the downside to it especially for beginners at this stage is that it's new so less docs/blog posts etc. I started on an Uno with a few Shields such as an LED Driver, Motor Driver and Ethernet Shield and that worked out pretty good for me :)

Nope.

The vast majority of libraries won't work with the new Due, and some older shields (like expansion cards you put on top) won't either.

The ATMega based boards are cheaper & are easier to get hold of.

Additionally, the Cortex I/O is 3.3V, not 5V tolerant which makes it easier to accidentally fry.

It's exciting stuff for experienced arduino users who like the ecosystem, but if you really want it I'd wait perhaps another hardware revision so the hardware & software stuff is properly in shape. I've been using arduino since the early days and, trust me, you don't want to be the first one hitting obscure preprocessor/compile bugs. You will also be amazed at the amount of performance you can get out of the little ATMegas when you don't have operating systems sucking up all your cycles!

Right now, I suspect the Uno is easier, because there is so much existing infrastructure around it.

Also, one of the appeals of Arduino to me is to re-learn simplicity, and relying on hardware solutions, due to the limitations of the micro controller. With a µC as powerful as the Due, the temptation for software types like me is to brute force everything in software again, which sort of defeats the purpose of Arduino tinkering for me. I've actually started playing with the ATtiny85, to have an even more limited hardware platform.

However, as a practical device, it looks like the Due is vastly more powerful than the Uno.

Start with the Uno. You'll cut your teeth on all the same conceptual ground you'll encounter with the Due, but you'll have a simpler platform under you with a great deal of supporting information available on the Internet.

When you grow out of the Uno, the Due will be there waiting for you.

Personally, I'm going to avoid getting a Due until I need the extra horsepower. The simplicity of the AT family of microcontrollers is very appealing. Once you have a prototype working on the Uno, creating the deployable version using an ATTiny85 or whatever is not that difficult.

Compare hooking up an 8 pin ATTiny85 and a few supporting components vs the soldering wire-wrapping nightmare of using a AT91SAM3X8E or some near equivalent.

Thank you all for the answers. Yes I suspect that I was a bit quick to jump on the appeal of the faster microcontroller on the Due while I wont really need it at all, especially in the beginning.

€60 for shipping to US seems a little much for shipping 60 grams taking a week.

Sadly none of the distributors seem to have it yet. Seems like we'll have to wait a little while longer still.

Take that up with UPS. I ran their shipping calculator for Rome to Dallas and got rates well in excess of that[1], so either they are eating part of the shipping or they have a preferred rate.

[1] Cheapest I saw was $109 (83 euros)

I think the problem is that they specified UPS express, which is one of their high speed delivery options (overniight within US, 2-3 days global point-to-point). I'd be perfectly OK with waiting a week for shipping by postal mail, but the Arduino folk don't offer a low-cost option.

Actually, what I quoted is for the cheapest service UPS offers between Italy and the US and is only about $15 less than their express service.

8-.

I'm sure SparkFun or some other American based company will import in bulk so you can get it cheaper from them.

Ture. I'll probably wait a few months and buy it from Amazon...

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1076 $50 US plus shipping.

This is really exciting- the Arduino DUE is the board used in the Android ADK2012[1]. I can't wait to start building hardware to talk to my android devices.

[1]: http://arduino.cc/blog/2012/06/28/android-adk2012-is-here/

Which version of ARM does this use?

Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 CPU

Datasheet: http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc11057.pdf

Seeing that the SAM3X has on-board Ethernet, but the Due doesn't have a port, I hope someone either builds a clone that does, or builds a simple (compared to current Ethernet shields) shield that adds the port.

This should really help lower the entry cost of using Ethernet in DIY devices, which I think is cool.

The Ethernet PHY is actually rather expensive, around $20. That's why the cheap dev boards don't have it.

That's true, of course. So, all I can hope for is that something like this (http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/ethernet-shield-p-518.html?...) drops in price by $5 then (the price of their on-board Ethernet controller). :)

How does using an ARM CPU go with the fact that Arduino is open source hardware (while Cortex M3 isn't) ?

I'm not sure Atmel AVR microcontrollers (used in the rest of the Arduino line) are open source hardware either. Sure, they are fully documented from the user's perspective, but Atmel doesn't give away source (Verilog/VHDL/etc.) for the core.

(I'll give you that ARM is more patent-encumbered.)

ARMv7

Major competitor to the Raspberry Pi.

Not at all. Cortex units lack a MMU, ARMv7 instructions (they're limited to THUMB/THUMB2), and don't have nearly enough RAM for even a bootloader capable of LOADING Linux, much less for Linux itself.

This and the Pi serve radically different purposes.

So... can I run Linux on it?

At 96kByte of RAM...? No.

Linux requires more resources, but if it's a small board you want to roll Linux checkout the Raspberry Pi!

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

You theoretically can on the 8-bit ATMegas, so I don't see why not. Using it in practice, though, is another matter.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/03/30/linux-atmel...

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