I am sure you heard that Arduino is coming out with ARM based controller. Yes, you are right, the Arduino DUE is finally here. Cytron is carrying it, official and originally from Arduino Italy. The Due is Arduino first ARM-based Arduino development board. It is based on a powerful 32bit Atmel
AT91SAM3XE8 CortexM3 ARM microcontroller. You will still write program using the Arduino IDE, but different version (for the time being). It increases the computing power available to Arduino users keeping the language as compatible as possible so that many programs will be migrated in a matter of minutes!
The Arduino Due has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 12 can be used as PWM outputs), 12 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), an 84 MHz clock, a USB-OTG capable connection, 2 DAC (digital to analog), 2 TWI, a power jack, an SPI header, a JTAG header, a reset button and an erase button. There are also some cool features like DACs, Audio, DMA , an experimental multi tasking library and more.
To compile code for the ARM processor, you will need the latest version of the
Arduino IDE: v1.5 (After a period of testing and debugging this will replace the 1.0.1 IDE altogether). You will need the
USB Micro-B cable to load program, please get it.
Because of the limitations of system voltage imposed by the Atmel SAM3X8E, Arduino shields that are based on the 5v models will not work properly. All the shields that fully implement the Arduino R3 layout are compatible straight away (like the Arduino WiFi shield and Ethernet Shield) but other shields might not be compatible. Be careful when you are plugging stuff in!
Note: Unlike other Arduino boards, the Arduino Due board
runs at 3.3V. The maximum voltage that the I/O pins can tolerate is 3.3V. Providing higher voltages, like 5V to an I/O pin could damage the board. Do visit the
Arduino DUE page from arduino.cc for more information.
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