ARM-ed To The Teeth, Arduino Hardware Grows Up

Makers and motherboard-modders rejoice! One of the many renouned open-source computing hardware companies not long ago debuted new hardware offerings for device geeks, inclusive a beefier plan house that will enable makers and hobbyists to emanate more complex embedded computing projects.

Arduino voiced 3 new products at Maker Faire NYC this weekend: The Arduino Due, that features a souped up ARM-based microcontroller, the Arduino Leonardo and the self-explanatory Arduino Wi-Fi.

Straight from the firm of the same name, an Arduino is an open-source prototyping house that houses a singular microcontroller (basically a programmable CPU) and allows for input-output with a number of ports, so you can link up a accumulation of sensors, LEDs, wires and whatever else you wish to your project. The Arduino stage has been a preferred of the DIY residents given it's inauguration in 2005, and until now, all other models have been 8-bit.

The new Arduino Due sports a extremely beefier set of stats, incorporating a 32-bit ARM-based microcontrollerthat can run up to 96 MHz. For comparison, typical Arduinos routinely have an 8-bit, 16 MHz processor. It has 256 KB of spark mental recall and 50 KB of RAM (SRAM, to be precise). This more modernized processor should enable hackers and DIYers to emanate more modernized projects than have been probable with Arduinos in the past.

Or as Wired's editor in arch Chris Anderson put it to us: "Basically, Arduino only grew up."

"It's more than only 32-bit power," says Anderson, who founded creator site DIYDrones . "It's moreover debugging, a real-time working system, local USB," and a horde of other mod-friendly attributes that allure to the tinkering crowd.

The Arduino Due isn't the initial of its type to add an ARM-based processor (which are used in a number of smartphones and mobile gadgets ). The Beagleboard beat Arduino to the punch, but a aloft price, not as big residents and a comparatively more complex inlet kept the Beagleboard from getting big.

But a more complex product, similar to the Due, means that building for it will moreover obtain a bit more tricky. The Arduino Due stage won't be truly as beginner-friendly as the company's other boards, so Arduino has taken measures to make sure that it doesn't finish up in beginner hands, at least initially.

The Arduino site - along with DIY destinations similar to Instructables , Hackaday and Wired.com's How-To Wiki - offer a riches of plan ideas, step by step instructions and representation ethics for the who wish to obtain in to the Arduino scene.

The Due will initial hurl out to developers, rsther than than right away being expelled to the residents at large. The firm skeleton a final, tested let go by the finish of 2011.

The Arduino Leonardo should be existing late October for a pocket-friendly $20. The Arduino Wi-Fi will moreover be existing in October.