Arduino DUE - pics

[Stuart Young]

Pics of the new Arduino DUE that is due out soon with a 32 bit Arm Cortex M3 core. Same footprint and I/O capability as a Mega.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotgrrl/7252704414/in/set-72157629855444076/ 

--
Stuart Young (aka Cefiar)

[Luke Weston]

I'm interested to know what their definition of "due out soon" actually is.

Hopefully not too many people are disappointed if they try and use their existing shields with these boards and find that they won't work because the Arduino Due has 3.3V-level digital inputs and outputs and the top of the ADC input range, and, even worse, hopefully we don't see many people wrecking their Due hardware by injecting 5V logic inputs into the 3.3V chip.

I hope the Arduino team are taking their time to "do it right" and release this significant new hardware revision with good documentation and good software so that the community can easily start to use this significant new hardware revision with good user experience, and this is why they're not rushing it.

Depending on exactly how they've broken out the pins from the Atmel SAM3X ARM chip onto the Arduino headers, if the nice peripherals in the chip are available such as the High-Speed Multimedia Card Interface, the CAN interface, the USB-On-The-Go interface, the Digital-to-Analog converters and the Ethernet MAC, then in theory we should see shields developed specifically for the Due which implement those hardware interfaces at very low cost with minimal additional hardware because the hardware is mostly already inside the main microcontroller and peripheral chipsets shouldn't be needed.

[Stuart Young]

The Arduino DUE was planned to be released near the end of last year according to some of the sites I Googled, so they are definitely being careful.

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Cef

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[Peter Rogers]

Its good to see they have gone to an arm chip.

 

Looking at the pics there seem to be 3 things that interest me for various reason,

 

1.       They have gone to a newer micro usb connector. Good move imho but harder to find cables

2.       Whats the 10 pin header just near sda1/aref silkscreen. Some sort of debug port?

3.       Whats the 8 pin IC above the word DUE. Some sort of eeprom/flash?

 

Either way its something else good to play with.

[Rob B]

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Peter Rogers <pro...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> Its good to see they have gone to an arm chip.
>
>
>
> Looking at the pics there seem to be 3 things that interest me for various
> reason,
>
>
>
> 1.       They have gone to a newer micro usb connector. Good move imho but
> harder to find cables
>
> 2.       Whats the 10 pin header just near sda1/aref silkscreen. Some sort
> of debug port?
>
> 3.       Whats the 8 pin IC above the word DUE. Some sort of eeprom/flash?

Is only 6 pin in my pic and is labeled ICSP
In-circuit serial programming

>
>
> Either way its something else good to play with.
>
>

>snip<

[Peter Rogers]

Rob,

Not the 6 pin icsp header, but the black 8 pin IC to its right. Just above
the word due. Im thinking its some sort of memory.

And also further look at the USB header it may be a micro usb a/b which
suggests they might have USB on the go, over that port.

peter

-----Original Message-----
From: connected-commu...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:connected-commu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rob B
Sent: Saturday, 26 May 2012 10:14 AM
To: connected-commu...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CCHS] Re: Arduino DUE - pics

[Stuart Young]

On 26 May 2012 10:27, Peter Rogers <pro...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

Rob,

Not the 6 pin icsp header, but the black 8 pin IC to its right. Just above

the word due. I'm thinking its some sort of memory.

The black 8 pin IC to the right of the main Arm chip (looking from top, with USB/power to left side) is an AT45DB series chip.

Looks like 45DB021D - 2Mbit DataFlash memory, 2.7v min, 3.6v max - http://www.atmel.com/devices/AT45DB021D.aspx

Talks SPI, arranges memory 1024 x 256/264 byte blocks.

Looks like the board has 2 x 1117 low drop-out regulators on it, which afaik is needed for the two power rails on the ATSAM3X-8E Arm chip.


BTW: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotgrrl/7252706778/sizes/o/in/set-72157629855444076/  gets nice close up detail of the board from the top. You can do the same to any of the pics by clicking on 'View all sizes' in the image view (doesn't work on mobiles) and selecting 'Original size'. They were taken on a Canon 7D, the pics are all around the ~5000px × ~3350px resolution, and most of the pics are fairly well focused.

And also further look at the USB header it may be a micro usb a/b which
suggests they might have USB on the go, over that port.

Deinitely looks like it, which would be a definite plus.

Also, looks like the 10 Pin connector is a Samtec 0.05" pitch micro header and therefore probably a Cortex Debug connector (like JTAG) without trace output. See http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.faqs/attached/13634/cortex_debug_connectors.pdf for details and a pin-out.

[James Muraca]

For what ts worth, ad a distributor for arduino we've been told nothing either of release dates. I was expecting this Due lines to come out around the start of the year but never saw them.
The only info I could get is about the new Leonardo (similar to the Freetronics Leo stick) and a couple of shields.
Looking forward to the new board with an abundance of features, but hoping that the 3v ports don't cause a pause in shield development while the old shields play catch up.

--

[Scott Penrose]

Hey Hackers

I am interested in what people would use the ARM for?

I have used ARM like this in the form of Leaf Labs Maple. The thing is, they just don't have enough memory. So you get the advantage of a 32 bit CPU without the memory, so doing large mathematical things becomes difficult. Plus they draw HEAPS more power.

So by all means, ARM is great. ARM in the form of Raspberry Pi and Beagle Bone (both many MB of ram) make sense, but in Arduino / Maple they are tiny (20K, I think maybe 50 in the Arduino?).

Sort of reminds me when I got my first dual socket dual core (4 cores) machine and it only had 1GB of ram in it. I couldn't max out the CPU till I put lots more in. Not really in anyway comparable to this situation, but did cross my mind :-)

So back to my question. What would people be using an ARM for that they can't already do on an AVR for less power and money?

Scott

[Clifford Heath]

On 26/05/2012, at 3:13 PM, Scott Penrose wrote:
> What would people be using an ARM for that they can't already do on an AVR for less power and money?

My plan: add an RF downconverter and build a hand-held software defined radio (DSP).
Starting out with 72MHz STM32 in the form of a DSO Nano V2, but willing to move to
Gumstix or better, maybe something like this if internal details are available:
<http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/new-74-android-mini-computer-is-slightly-larger-than-a-thumb-drive/>

[Denis Dowling]

The memory on these ARM chips is a bit limiting but the extra processing
power really comes in handy when crunching data from say a 9DOF
accelerometer, gyro and magnetic compass module. It is easy to push
update rates to the 100Hz level required for accurate control loops.
They are also great for driving LED matrix displays where you can get
some neat effects from high frame rates.

You need to be aware of efficient coding given the limited memory so you
cannot program them like a desktop machine but anyone coming from an
Arduino background should be fine. I have not found the ARMs draw a heap
of power. Again if you use interrupt driven code and sleep the processor
when it is not busy power consumption is compatible with AVR. Running as
a lower core voltage certainly helps here.

[Stuart Young]

On 26 May 2012 15:13, Scott Penrose <sco...@dd.com.au> wrote:

Hey Hackers

I am interested in what people would use the ARM for?

I have used ARM like this in the form of Leaf Labs Maple. The thing is, they just don't have enough memory. So you get the advantage of a 32 bit CPU without the memory, so doing large mathematical things becomes difficult. Plus they draw HEAPS more power.

It's a Cortex 3X 8E, which is 2 x 256KB flash, and 64KB + 32KB SRAM. Add to that the 2Mbits flash on SPI.
 

So by all means, ARM is great. ARM in the form of Raspberry Pi and Beagle Bone (both many MB of ram) make sense, but in Arduino / Maple they are tiny (20K, I think maybe 50 in the Arduino?).

Obviously didn't look at the specs of the Cortex M3 3X 8E. Of course, how much wrapper code ends up around a 'sketch' still remains to be seen, or if it's even code compatible.

Sort of reminds me when I got my first dual socket dual core (4 cores) machine and it only had 1GB of ram in it. I couldn't max out the CPU till I put lots more in. Not really in anyway comparable to this situation, but did cross my mind :-)

So back to my question. What would people be using an ARM for that they can't already do on an AVR for less power and money?

Mainly, the big problem with AVR's for me is speed of maths (working out curves for the printer to follow) & comms (interaction with a PC) at the same time.

I'm looking at using it for RepRap, and the issue tends to be that talking to the board 'slows down' other functions enough that, if you hammer it too much, you can seriously end up missing events, which in a printer is pretty much everything.

If the Arduino tool-chain 'just works' for the new platform (ie: same definitions, same code), then I can take a default RAMPS board without extras (The RAMPS board is designed for the Arduino Mega) and it will just work. The Stepper drivers on it are capable of running down to 3.0v, though we may need to change the MOSFETS to something that'll be ok with a 3.3v gate input (hopefully simple component for component swap - no board redesign).

If there was a version of the Mega that was like 32 Mhz and completely code-compatible 9and widely available), that would most likely be more than enough to solve the problem. With the Cortex M3 3X 8E running at 84 Mhz, it should be suitable for what I want. The fact that it's the same familiar 'Mega' platform that everything I'm planning to use it with is designed for is a BIG win, enough that if it wasn't that platform, I wouldn't even be looking at it.

Note: I expect other variants based on this design to come out in the future (not necessarily from Arduino), including some of the Cortex M3 hardware that doesn't appear to be exposed on the DUE (eg: the Ethernet MII interface and the CAN bus for example).

And yes, you may note I was recently talking about using a Raspberry Pi with a Mega to drive a RepRap. While I like that solution, it's not the only option that I want to explore. In this case, there is always the option to go with both.

[Clifford Heath]

On 26/05/2012, at 5:24 PM, Stuart Young wrote:
> … It's a Cortex 3X 8E, which is 2 x 256KB flash, and 64KB + 32KB SRAM. Add to that the 2Mbits flash on SPI.

…and the TI OMAP 4 processors are 1.5GHz and 512/512KB Flash/Ram.
They also have an internal DSP unit (additional opcodes in the ARM A8)
which is intended to audio, but would work pretty well for curve generation
too I reckon.

Fast/big enough for you? Otherwise go to the multi-core OMAP 5 series…

Clifford.

[Scott Penrose]

Excellent stuff. Thanks

Scott

[Luke Weston]

Note: I expect other variants based on this design to come out in the future (not necessarily from Arduino), including some of the Cortex M3 hardware that doesn't appear to be exposed on the DUE (eg: the Ethernet MII interface and the CAN bus for example).

Definitely, this is what I look forward to seeing.

The Due is coming onto the market later than some of the other 32-bit-core pseudo-Arduino products like the Microchip ChipKIT and the NetDuino, FEZDomino, Maple, etc, but some of these products are let down significantly by the fact that they have software toolchains which are partially or completely not open source, they're not open hardware, and/or they're not compatible with the Arduino IDE.

Unlike some of these other 32-bit products, the Arduino Due will be well documented open hardware, with an open-software bootloader, integrated into the standard open-source Arduino IDE and the toolchain such as avr-gcc that the Arduino IDE has running under the bonnet, and that will be really valuable compared to some of the existing options that got to the market first, and it will spawn the development of derivative hardware which is better hardware but which is still truly Arduino compatible.

[Stuart Young]

Very true, but like Luke mentioned, the tool-chain (preferably being able to re-use code verbatim from Arduino, using the same familiar IDE) and platform design are key to what I want.

Having something 'faster' and more capable than what I currently have solves issues when I run into upper limits, with hopefully little/no code change.

If I was developing my own hardware from scratch, something like that has huge grunt to do whatever I want. But I'd have to start from scratch, which means I'm spending time learning what I want to do, rather than just doing it.

[Andy Gelme]

hi All,

On 26/05/12 3:13 PM, Scott Penrose wrote:
> I am interested in what people would use the ARM for?

On 2012-05-26 17:05 , Denis Dowling wrote:
> The memory on these ARM chips is a bit limiting but the extra
> processing power really comes in handy when crunching data from say a
> 9DOF accelerometer, gyro and magnetic compass module. It is easy to
> push update rates to the 100Hz level required for accurate control loops.

Yes, that is exactly the application I'm working on right now.

Being able to calculate complex flight path information on-board in
real-time ... and only wirelessly transmit processed data (rather than
tons of raw data) ... is critical.

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