Arduino is a convenient and flexible, easy-to-start open-source electronic prototyping platform, mainly containing hardware (various models of Arduino development board) and software (Arduino IDE).
As one of the most popular open-source hardware in the market, Arduino launched Uno R3 back in 2010 and an upgraded version – Arduino Uno R4 – 13 years later, the new product has made a huge leap in terms of processing power, memory, storage and network connectivity.
The Arduino UNO R4 will be available in May, with pricing not yet announced, in both “Minima” (regular) and Wi-Fi versions, and a wireless version with the Espressif S3 module that supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
The UNO R4 maintains the same lead layout as the R3, with an upgrade to the 48 MHz 32-bit Renesas RA4M1 processor. This new chip is based on the Arm Cortex M4 architecture and represents a performance leap over the previous generation of 8-bit 16 MHz AVR RISC-based ATmega328P processors.
Arduino says most existing software libraries will work without modification, but some AVR-optimized software libraries may need to be adjusted.
In addition, Uno R4 has 32K of SRAM, which is 16 times the size of the previous generation Uno R3 (2K). It also has 256K of onboard NAND, compared to 32K in the R3.
As for the interface, it has a USB-C port for PC connection, which is more modern than the bulky USB Type-B on the older model. It also has a 12-bit analogue DAC, a CAN bus, and an SPI port on board.
Although it is not yet available for sale, an official Early Adopter program has been launched for developers that will give away a free Uno R4 to the author or maintainer of an Arduino library or popular open-source project.
