Arduino Goes ARM

mikejuk writes "The whole world seems to be going in ARM's direction. The latest version of Windows 8 will run on ARM processors, Raspberry Pi is a $25 ARM based machine and now the open source Arduino platform has a new member — the ARM-based Arduino Due announced at the Maker Faire in New York. The Due makes use of Atmel's SAM3U ARM-based process, which supports 32-bit instructions and runs at 96Mhz. The Due will have 256KB of Flash, 50KB of SRAM, five SPI buses, two I2C interfaces, five serial ports, 16 12-bit analog inputs and more. This is much more powerful than the current Uno or Mega. However, it's not all gain — the 3.3V operating voltage and the different I/O ports are going to create some compatibility problems. Perhaps Intel should start to worry about the lower end of the processor world."

Encouraging Overkill

[MrOctogon]

As somebody who is looking for a more powerful prototyping platform on the cheap I look forward to this. But I would not use it for a majority of my hobby projects, which do not need a lot of this power.

Most arduino projects only use a few I/O pins and very little processing power. Many hobby projects could be made with a much weaker pic processor, and many could get by on the basic 8 pin pics. Many people don't know that the simpler solutions exist, because they only see arduino stuff all over the web. The full development board is way overkill.

Additionally, with current arduino setups, it is fairly simple to make a clone around an ATmega chip. All parts are soldered easily through hole, and the schematic is easy. With a 32 bit surface mount chip, the schematic gets complex enough that most hobbyists are now scared off by the hard soldering and the crazy layouts. The open source, easy to clone nature of Arduino that made it what it is today is incompatible with the new high-end boards, and people will have to pay more for the official dev boards, or something else professionally fabbed.